Flash fiction competition and updates

Lots of updates here, so sorry for dotting around all over the place.

First, I found an interesting competition for flash fiction while I was browing the web this week. The 30 word story contest is being run by SmokeLong Quarterly to celebrate it's 30th issue, and runs throughout November. There's no entry fee, you can submit up to three entries, and the prize is publication in a special 30th edition of the magazine.
It says: "This is what we'll be looking for in the stories submitted for our contest - very short gems that are sparse, yet evocative."

The creative writing course is going really well and the first assignment is due in this week. If you want to try out what we have to do, you have to do a 200-300 word freewrite on one of a choice of subjects and then use that as the basis for a 750 word piece of fiction. I'm not going to post up the topics here just in case it's not allowed by the university, but last year's themes have included a search; learning to swim; a scrapyard; hearing a piano; and a bunch of keys.

The final very quick update is that I've now managed to keep my streak on 750words.com going for 39 days, and at 30 I became an 'albatross'. Lucky me. I get a phoenix if I can keep it up for 100 days.

Yes, it may just be a very small little image, but it's amazing what an incentive it can be!