Time to release a story

One of my short stories, Setting the Clock, was highly commended in this year's Page & Blackmore Top of the South competition. It will be published in a forthcoming anthology, Horizons 2. Though delighted, it was curious to find myself feeling sad that I can no longer tinker with this story. It will be 'set' in the printed version and I have to let it go. I don't know if it is the same for other writers, but when composing a story I sort of live in it (in my mind at least). Even when a version is on the page and I think it is complete, I can go back, enter the world of the story, and dream a little. It will usually be followed by some changes or additions. In some ways this is the part of writing that draws me most. The waking dream of it. Setting the Clock has been around for years in several forms. But now it has landed and we must part ways.