This year, I had a writing bucket list moment. The opportunity to work for the BBC as a first tier judge for their 500 Words children's writing competition. And what an opportunity it was. As I know myself, it takes a lot of effort to write a story, and then to take that next step to submit it to be judged by a stranger is not an easy decision. But I was delighted that each child took that next step and that I was accepted to take on this important role for the age range of 5 to 9 year olds. So that all stories were judged on an equal basis, I was given a five-point judging criteria of: originality, characterisation, plot, use of creative language and level of enjoyment. Tips and guidance by famous children's authors were also provided to all the judges. I was told not to judge the stories on their quality of spelling, grammar or punctuation as it was all about the story content. I then had to score each criteria out of 10; these were then totalled for each story and sent