Week 40! Another quiet week here, at least as far as the writing goes. The kid stuff however? That’s getting busy. All sorts of scout stuff and conferences and so on. And there’s more of the same coming up.
This is where the power of write 1/sub 1 comes in. Nine months in and it’s pretty much a habit now, like exercise.
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Week 39! A quiet week to end September, and I’m grateful for that. The whole house (all of us, minus the pets) had some form of end-of-summer cold, to varying degrees.
I’m so glad the Flash Fiction Challenge was last week. I had an automatic submission for this week and plenty of time to peck my way through a new story.
This week I played around with a Puss in Boots retelling for a call for submissions I discovered. By doing so, I filled up the last pages of my notebook. My daughter was paging through it, somewhat amazed that I had filled in every single page, and asked: “How do you think of so many stories to write?”
I told her I didn’t know. And actually, my best writing happens when I don’t think, or at least, not too hard.
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Week 38! Well, September is shaping up rather nicely. Two milestone acceptances this week. Two! I know, it’s crazy times around here.
First, I sold audio/reprint rights for The Secret Life of Sleeping Beauty to Cast of Wonders. I can’t wait to hear what they do with the story.
Then, the next day, I find out that my poem (yes, poem) Land of the Free (Haircuts) will be part of Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Volume 2. The anthology is a partnership between the Missouri Humanities Council, Warriors Arts Alliance, and Southeast Missouri State University Press.
Like I said, crazy times.
My write 1 for the week was the Flash Fiction Challenge. What did I end up with? Take a look:
Comedy / a rain forest / water balloon
My first draft ended up at 999 words. I played around with it a bit, then put it away to compost overnight. I’ll take a last look later today, proof it, and send it off. I don’t know how funny it is. I think, at most, it’s lightly humorous (and that’s a stretch). But! It’s done! I did it! And it was fun to write. And really, you can’t ask for more than that.
Since that was my write 1 for the week, I spent time getting stories from my notebook into electronic form. I now have three more to shape up and send off in the near future. Plus, I started a longer short story.
All in all, not a bad week.
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Week 37! More big news this week. Ghost in the Coffee Machine will be part of the COFFEE: Caffeinated Tales of the Fantastic anthology, due out later this year (in time for the holidays)!
My write 1 for the week was another flash challenge assignment, which was:
Open/ A rooftop / press-on fingernails
I came in at 2,000 words or so. Not quite a flash, and I’m thinking this story needs a bit more, but I really like where it ended up, press-on fingernails and all, so there’s that.
In fact, I counted up the number of draft stories I have and it came out to nine. Nine! This does not include the story with the glass eye. Yeah, that one probably isn’t making it out of my notebook.
I have four draft stories in electronic form and five still in my (paper) notebook. I need to carve out a little time and get the rest of those stories into electronic form so I can start sending them out.
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Week 36! My big news: I sold another story. The Short Sweet Life of My Invisible Prom Date will be published in an upcoming issue of Mad Scientist Journal.
It’s such a quirky little story that I’m very pleased it managed to find a home.
My write 1 for the week was another flash challenge assignment, which was:
Comedy/ A space station/ Onion rings
Again, while I don’t plan to ever look a gift story in the mouth, this one came in at about 3,000 words (you’ll note the trend–longer, not shorter) and it in no way resembles a comedy (despite those onion rings). This upcoming week I hope to write an actual piece of flash fiction. We’ll see how that goes.
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Week 35! I was a submitting fool this week again, catching a few markets before they closed at the end of August. Total for August? Nine stories submitted and I wrote five. Not a bad way to wrap up the summer.
I also got my write 1 in for the week, another flash challenge assignment, which was:
Sci Fi / A luxury spa / a wig
This actually gave me more to work with–maybe too much more, since it came in at ~ 2,000 words. But I really liked where the story was going and I’m not one to look a gift story in the mouth.
No rejections or acceptances this week, but one of the stories I sent out did make the first round cut for an anthology. Now it’s simply a matter of waiting. Fortunately, that was one of the skills I perfected in the Army.
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Week 34! I did get a new story out this week (A Measure of Sorrow) along with two others I sent back out the door.
Next month, I will participate in a flash fiction challenge where they send out a prompt based on genre, location, and an object. This starts at midnight on a Friday and you have until midnight on Sunday to turn in your story.
Yeah. Crazy.
So crazy, I thought maybe I should train for it. Back in the day, in the Army, we had a saying: Train as you fight. Why not apply that to this situation?
My goal on Friday was to dash off a flash fiction piece in a day. I used the examples on the site, only I made three separate lists, so I wouldn’t go into any story with preconceived notions. I mixed up the selections using a random number generator.
What was my first assignment?
Romantic Comedy / A drug rehab center / a glass eye
Yes. Because nothing says romance or comedy like drug addiction. But … I did it. I had a story by the end of Friday. I’m not certain it’s something I’ll ever send out. I am fairly certain it’s offensive (see “glass eye” above), but it was a blast to write and reassuring.
I may come in last, but I feel pretty certain I can write a story for the challenge (albeit an offensive one).
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Week 33! I got my write one in early this week. A good thing since the rest of the week was consumed by a concussion, my daughter’s, not mine. She’s recovering quickly and only has the smallest of headaches this morning.
Also this week, I revised one of my draft stories for submission, so this coming week I can send out something new along with a story that’s been making the rounds already. I have a backlog of stories (more than I realized) that I’d like to get all dressed up and sent out the door.
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I didn’t plan day #9 like this, but it worked out just fine. Today’s prompt:
Post either a setting or character profile from your latest fiction project, a chapter summary of your non-fiction book, or a discussion of the theme or object inspiring a poem, article, or other writing project.
So … I’m still a little amazed that Kazka Press accepted The Girl with the Piccolo. It’s … uh … whimsical? I don’t know. Anyway, they did, and there it is. I started down the path of this story with a prompt from The Writer’s Regimen, which was, in part:
Try creating a character whose occupation is one that you are not familiar with and do some research as to what knowledge and skills he or she would need to fill that position.
Why I tried searching on jobs that involved noise, I’m not certain, but I came across listings for jobs in the United Kingdom for noise officers. I remember thinking, sure, we have people who clean up trash, purify water, and so on. What if you had to clean up noise?
Probably because I’m former military, officer = army, and my mind went off in that direction. The rest of it? You got me. I do know this. The following phrase popped into my head at one point:
Everyone always underestimates the girl with the piccolo.
There you go. That was enough character/conflict for me to take the idea and run with it for about 1,000 words. The story begins with:
No one thinks about the empty note casings after the nightly revelry. Someone has to pick them up, right? That I spent four grueling years at the Acoustic Academy at Stormy Point for the privilege is something I try not to think about.
You can read the rest here.
Week 32! I was speedy this week and finished my write 1 story on Wednesday. I played around with another, slightly longer, idea that I hope will shape up into my write 1 for this coming week.
I also need to do some revision and shape a few more stories for submission. Mainly because I’m running out. Everything is all tied up in as many submissions as possible. I need to get some “new blood” out there, so to speak. I would also like to finish out the blogging challenge as well (just two to go–I can do that, can’t I?)
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Writing Wrongs 