Sunday, May 20, 2012
May Writing Challenge - Week 3
A Story A Day In May update:
(a daily log of victory and shame)
May 14: Took a break from writing today (or trying to write) and finally read Hunger Games. All of it. Today. Because that's how I read (devour) books. I was very disappointed in the ending. I hate 'buy the next book to continue the story' endings. A story should end, leaving me the choice to continue on with what happens next or not.
I don't usually read YA, but I'm percolating my June Camp NaNo project--which is to revise (and write in the last half and ending of) an attempt at a YA fantasy. I figured getting in the YA mode of thought might help get the ideas flowing. Overall, I liked Hunger Games. It was an easy, enjoyable read and had some touching moments. However, I kept waiting for something really drastic or unexpected to happen but it never did. Maybe this says something about me when twenty-two kids dying horrible deaths inflicted by one another just isn't drastic enough to wow me.
May 15: Yanked last week's failed story from the percolator. Got the first couple hundred words down and realized it still has no goal. It is slightly more funny though so hey, that's something. I shoved it back in the percolator. Worked on catching up on crits and revising A Broken Race instead.
May 16: Got a good idea for a story but beyond the opening line, didn't get time to write it down. Maybe tomorrow. On the other hand, I did get some more revisions of A Broken race completed.
May 17: Wrote opening scene for as of yet untitled story and have the rest all laid out in my head. I'm liking this one--it's inspired by a failed short I wrote during NaNo two years ago. Spent the rest of the day prepping for annual garage sale.
May 18: Ran annual garage sale singlehandedly AND worked then volunteered for four hours at night at school for PTO event. No writing.
May 19: Garage sale all day AGAIN and cleanup. Worked on the ending of story from the 17th in my head, though I didn't get a chance to write any more of it down on account of crashing, exhausted and with a migraine into bed at 8:30pm.
May 20: With the garage sale done I was really looking forward to a day of writing after my busy week. I curled up with my laptop, got yet another idea for a short that brought together several ideas I'd had floating around for quite some time and started writing. Damn that felt good! That is, until my husband reminded me that we had agreed to spend the day at our property picking up the thousands of sticks from over the winter. (insert excessive amounts of internal swearing.)
In summary: This week sucked for writing.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
May Writing Challenge: Week 2
A Story A Day In May update:
(a daily log of victory and shame)
May 10: Too damn busy.
May 11: Total percolator fail. Planted flowers outside instead.
May 12: Tickle - a 1230 word story about a stalker alien. I rather like this one.
May 13: Sunday is my day off of writing - but I did percolate a little so we'll see what Monday brings.
(a daily log of victory and shame)
May 10: Too damn busy.
May 11: Total percolator fail. Planted flowers outside instead.
May 12: Tickle - a 1230 word story about a stalker alien. I rather like this one.
May 13: Sunday is my day off of writing - but I did percolate a little so we'll see what Monday brings.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
May Writing Challenge - Update 2
A Story A Day In May update:
(a daily log of victory and shame)
May 7: Taking a Breather - 1850 words - A very dark attempt at a mermaid story. This one was loosely inspired by a 100 word sentence story I wrote a year ago. It needs some work, but I'm fairly happy with how the story turned out.
May 8: Here's a short story about why I didn't get time to write: I woke up at 4am with an allergy attack and got back to sleep at 6:30, half an hour before I had to get up. After seeing the kids off, I worked like a maniac. At noon, I ran to pick up one child from school for both of our dentist appointments. Then brought said child home to eat lunch while I worked, then dropped child back at school. I finally had time to eat lunch. Then more work, but I ran out of time to drop off orders for shipping. Dropped off Girl Scout snacks at school, then dropped off shipments. Ran back to school. Loaded up car with Girl Scouts and went on a field trip. Came back to school. (Noticing a central school theme for the day?) Got rid of all kids but mine. Dropped that kid off at home and drove to other kid's track meet. Met other Girl Scout leader there to exchange paperwork and watched the half of the track meet I hadn't missed because I was late thanks to the field trip. Ran home with track kid. Made dinner and shoveled food in my face. Drove to a Girl Scout leader meeting. Sat through an hour of women blathering to get my needed paperwork exchanged / picked up / stuff for the girls. Drove home. Talked on the phone for an hour with the other Girl Scout leader who couldn't make the meeting. Then I dealt with Boy Scout emails from people who had three weeks to order shirts for their boys, but didn't and now want to know if they can have them tomorrow. (Um no.) And now my zombie ass is sitting on the couch staring off into space. Not the kind of staring that means plotting, but the drool from the corner of the mouth kind. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
May 9: Document 9: The percolater coughed up a little something. I put in sci-fi, it came out fantasy. I asked for comedy, it came out depressing. I wiped it up with a tissue and put it back in the percolator. Moving on.
(a daily log of victory and shame)
May 7: Taking a Breather - 1850 words - A very dark attempt at a mermaid story. This one was loosely inspired by a 100 word sentence story I wrote a year ago. It needs some work, but I'm fairly happy with how the story turned out.
May 8: Here's a short story about why I didn't get time to write: I woke up at 4am with an allergy attack and got back to sleep at 6:30, half an hour before I had to get up. After seeing the kids off, I worked like a maniac. At noon, I ran to pick up one child from school for both of our dentist appointments. Then brought said child home to eat lunch while I worked, then dropped child back at school. I finally had time to eat lunch. Then more work, but I ran out of time to drop off orders for shipping. Dropped off Girl Scout snacks at school, then dropped off shipments. Ran back to school. Loaded up car with Girl Scouts and went on a field trip. Came back to school. (Noticing a central school theme for the day?) Got rid of all kids but mine. Dropped that kid off at home and drove to other kid's track meet. Met other Girl Scout leader there to exchange paperwork and watched the half of the track meet I hadn't missed because I was late thanks to the field trip. Ran home with track kid. Made dinner and shoveled food in my face. Drove to a Girl Scout leader meeting. Sat through an hour of women blathering to get my needed paperwork exchanged / picked up / stuff for the girls. Drove home. Talked on the phone for an hour with the other Girl Scout leader who couldn't make the meeting. Then I dealt with Boy Scout emails from people who had three weeks to order shirts for their boys, but didn't and now want to know if they can have them tomorrow. (Um no.) And now my zombie ass is sitting on the couch staring off into space. Not the kind of staring that means plotting, but the drool from the corner of the mouth kind. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
May 9: Document 9: The percolater coughed up a little something. I put in sci-fi, it came out fantasy. I asked for comedy, it came out depressing. I wiped it up with a tissue and put it back in the percolator. Moving on.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
May writing challenge: Week 1
A Story A Day In May update:
(a daily log of victory and shame)
May 1: Mary's Garden - 870 words of literary something I'm rating just above 'Meh'. I blame my hurried and lackluster effort an a hectic day topped with horrible allergies. But hey, it's got a beginning, middle and end so I'm calling it a success on that front.
May 2: Total fail. There's something about two volunteer projects and an eleven hour workday that isn't conducive to writing a darn thing. Though I did find a prompt I'd meant to work on a month ago and put it in the percolator.
May 3: Total fail. See above.
May 4: A Little Thing Like Death - 1,840 word futuristic love story. The percolator paid off! The ending came to me last night. Loving it (as of finishing it five minutes ago).
May 5: Document 7 (untitled as of yet): 500 word beginning of sci-fi humor that just isn't clicking. It's been in the percolator for weeks but it's coming out strained. I'm going to let this one percolate for a few more hours and see if it goes somewhere in my head rather than wasting my morning with banging my head on the keyboard.
Sadly this means I'm pulling in my pre-May story, Sunset Cruise to bring my first week total to:
2 good stories
2 meh
2 fail
I'm taking Sunday off. I have a hangover on my calendar for May 6 (and a volunteer obligation later in the day), so unless the percolator hits me hard, there will be no writing.
(a daily log of victory and shame)
May 1: Mary's Garden - 870 words of literary something I'm rating just above 'Meh'. I blame my hurried and lackluster effort an a hectic day topped with horrible allergies. But hey, it's got a beginning, middle and end so I'm calling it a success on that front.
May 2: Total fail. There's something about two volunteer projects and an eleven hour workday that isn't conducive to writing a darn thing. Though I did find a prompt I'd meant to work on a month ago and put it in the percolator.
May 3: Total fail. See above.
May 4: A Little Thing Like Death - 1,840 word futuristic love story. The percolator paid off! The ending came to me last night. Loving it (as of finishing it five minutes ago).
May 5: Document 7 (untitled as of yet): 500 word beginning of sci-fi humor that just isn't clicking. It's been in the percolator for weeks but it's coming out strained. I'm going to let this one percolate for a few more hours and see if it goes somewhere in my head rather than wasting my morning with banging my head on the keyboard.
Sadly this means I'm pulling in my pre-May story, Sunset Cruise to bring my first week total to:
2 good stories
2 meh
2 fail
I'm taking Sunday off. I have a hangover on my calendar for May 6 (and a volunteer obligation later in the day), so unless the percolator hits me hard, there will be no writing.
Monday, April 30, 2012
The story ideas, they're attacking!
So I signed up for this writing challenge in May - 31 stories. Short stories. The only stipulation is that no matter what the length, they must be a finished story (finished = beginning, middle, end). But the ideas! They're haunting me early! It's like someone turned on the faucet, and I don't have the right wrench to turn it back off.
Let's just hope the creative flow stays running once May hits.
I woke up with an idea. One of those ideas that won't shut up. Ever have one of those? I get them from time to time and generally, those are the stories that end up working. This one just sat there screaming at me until I got out of bed, opened my laptop and started writing.
The weird thing was, this is the not the sort of thing I usually write. In fact, I've never written plain old general fiction before. I'm a genre kind of girl. It blame it on the fact that I'm currently working my way through (meaning it sits in my car and I read when I'm waiting to pick up my son from track) Friedman's Fables. Which also isn't the kind of book I'd normally pick up, but there were slim pickings in the sections where I pick up books for my NaNo writing group prizes and it seemed like something anyone could get something out of. For the record, it is exactly that.
It's April 28, and I've just given birth to an 1,800 word short story called Sunset Cruise that I'm in love with (for at least today). For the record, I'm holding this in reserve as one of my 31 stories in case I miss a day because darn it, I wouldn't have even had this 'problem' if the challenge hadn't nudged my creative faucet.
Update: Two other ideas are knocking at the door. I'm fending them off for now. Hopefully they'll gather some backup and mob me tomorrow.
Let's just hope the creative flow stays running once May hits.
I woke up with an idea. One of those ideas that won't shut up. Ever have one of those? I get them from time to time and generally, those are the stories that end up working. This one just sat there screaming at me until I got out of bed, opened my laptop and started writing.
The weird thing was, this is the not the sort of thing I usually write. In fact, I've never written plain old general fiction before. I'm a genre kind of girl. It blame it on the fact that I'm currently working my way through (meaning it sits in my car and I read when I'm waiting to pick up my son from track) Friedman's Fables. Which also isn't the kind of book I'd normally pick up, but there were slim pickings in the sections where I pick up books for my NaNo writing group prizes and it seemed like something anyone could get something out of. For the record, it is exactly that.
It's April 28, and I've just given birth to an 1,800 word short story called Sunset Cruise that I'm in love with (for at least today). For the record, I'm holding this in reserve as one of my 31 stories in case I miss a day because darn it, I wouldn't have even had this 'problem' if the challenge hadn't nudged my creative faucet.
Update: Two other ideas are knocking at the door. I'm fending them off for now. Hopefully they'll gather some backup and mob me tomorrow.
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