Altering the Deal

In light of my most recent writing challenge, I’m looking back at the goals with a fresh eye. The challenge’s rules were pretty straightforward per my post where I outlined the basics:

I’m thinking that the challenge should involve the script that Ben hooked me up with, already pre-loaded with the 20 master plots, and, genres, settings, and elements that I already like. Each short story should be somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 words (challenging for me – my average ‘short story’ is something like 5K-6K words).

Given the above, you can extrapolate:

– No longer than 2,500 words.
– Incorporate all elements from the script.
– One short story a week.

I’m wondering if all of these rules are good ones. Maybe it’s time to alter the deal.

I’m still down with the word count rules – in fact my stories have all been 2,000 words – and I am down with the deadline. What I’m having issues with is the script.

For all of the random permutations it could create, I find that I’m already starting to trip over things I’ve done in other stories. I can expand the entries – but ultimately, the master plots are going to be repeated at least twice for each if I spread them out evenly – some will get three times. And it’s clear I’m not good at some of them. Love and The Riddle come to mind – they don’t cram well into short works. And I’m ultimately, my goal isn’t to get good at them if I’m being really honest.

Riddle me this: why would I force myself to write something I don't enjoy? — Riddle me this: why would I force myself to write something I don’t enjoy?

I’m all about expanding my horizons and personal growth in my work – but isn’t life too short to be spinning cycles on things that don’t utilize my actual skills? I think my repertoire is pretty good with the things I am good at.

I’m finding that my deeper goal is that I want to write. I want to write about the things I’d want to read.

Is that enough?

I think it might be.

So, I may alter the deal. I’m thinking that I should be using the prompts as guidelines – not a rule.

First person to say parlay gets a cutlass to the face.

As noted earlier, the script is great for mashing up ideas – but sometimes the plots or the settings don’t match (though there’s a case for this in stories like Moneyworkers) and as a result, there’s no flow. No flow means less writing, which in turn means more failed challenges.

I’m thinking the challenge would be modified as follows:

– No longer than 2,500 words.
– Alter the script to drop the master plot element (let me write the kinds of stories that work for me while retaining setting, genre, and elements)
– One short story a week.

It’s presently food for thought for me. I haven’t decided yet.

Ultimately, I have to do what’s best to develop and refine my skills. If you have thoughts on it, post to my Facebook Page. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

March 18, 2015 0

Automaton

There’s something about just unchaining your brain and letting stuff leak out. Don’t format it beyond making it readable, just let it all come out. Become an automaton whose guiding hand has gone absent. Let the output flow out. It does a little bit of good from time to time.

I first learned of Automatic Writing when I was about sixteen years old, not in an English class, but in a French Class. Our teacher was not only in it to teach us about the French language (most of which lays rusty and unused in the cellar of my mind) but also to give us a little insight into French culture. A lot of that was the arts, both visual and otherwise. Apparently there were a couple of French surrealists who dabbled in Automatic Writing, which, depending on who you asked, was either letting the subconscious come out to play in the written word or some external force acting upon a relaxed mind to send out messages in text. I’m thinking that the external side of things is probably not true – but overall, I have engaged in Automatic Writing from time to time as a result of a well rounded public education. The subconscious can sometimes give you keen insights into your own mind that are both terrifying and liberating. It’s often also extremely intimate and personal. So much so that it is frequently inappropriate to even release such writings into the wild. I haven’t the streak of exhibitionism necessary (just enough to have a blog) to place it all out where people can see it.

But the process is simple enough for anyone to try. Pull out your preferred medium for writing, be that a notepad on your desktop, an actual notepad and a pen, whatever you need to relax and just start. It can just be scribbles if you have to start that way, or start with one word and see what chains onto it. There’s no need for punctuation, no grammar. Just write what comes to mind. Stop when the words do. Pushing out more than what’s being brought to the surface is planned writing. If you had to pause for more than a moment, the exercise is over.

automaton - scribbles — Though one could make the case that legibility is perhaps useful.

I find that on a word processing program I can bang out about 150-200 words before something switches me back to conscious thought. But, with practice you can go a lot longer and you can pluck out a few gems here and there that you can then place in conscious work. All fodder for the work.

Being an automaton doesn’t have to be all bad after all.

January 13, 2015 0

A Pattern To Emerge – Writing Challenge

So, the pattern I speak of is going to assert itself if I have my druthers. And that pattern is this:

I want you to come to my blog every Wednesday. Because every Wednesday in 2015, I plan to have a short story written. This shall be the day each week that I’ll check in with a new story, god willing. I promise they’ll be short – not my usual bloated messes. Because that’s a part of the challenge to myself. I have 2,000 words maximum. The challenge is not just a creative one, but a technical one. I have to learn to be concise, to know that I have the determination to kill my darlings as it were. I’m finding submission guidelines to be pretty uniform: less than 2,000 words or GTFO.

This Wednesday’s story is written. I’ve let it marinate a bit, but I’ll run it through a quick edit and pop it into place then. I’m also working on the next story – just a rough. I’m letting myself get ahead because it gives time for polish and editing – something I know I need. I have a bad habit of putting up work that sorely needs it.

I can’t wait to have fifty two stories to share.

January 12, 2015 0

Short Story Writing Challenge

Nano is real popular insofar as challenges go.

Despite my current feelings toward it, it’s really good for people starting out, and it did a lot for me in getting my writing process down.

However, I’m finding my writing needs changing a bit. It’s hard to write long format now and I feel like that creative core inside me is atrophying a bit. I need to do something measurably possible in the time I have available to me.

So I think I shall devise a challenge of my own.

It will involve zero knights, and zero herrings. Well, maybe red herrings. But 2,500 words is a little short to be throwing out red herrings.

I don’t want to name it, so it’ll just be a personal challenge and I can post the results right here – and you can yell at me when it’s not getting done.

I’m thinking that the challenge should involve the script that Ben hooked me up with, already pre-loaded with the 20 master plots, and, genres, settings, and elements that I already like. Each short story should be somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 words (challenging for me – my average ‘short story’ is something like 5K-6K words).

With that in mind, my first story the script popped out was:

I’m writing a Dystopian Forbidden Love story, featuring Ghosts and Urban Exploration in The Middle of Nowhere.

Well… I’ll see you next Tuesday (Oh god. The pop culture meaning is killing me).

December 16, 2014 0

NaNoWriMo – Be Creative All the Damn Time

You Know What? I don’t think I’m gonna wait for NaNoWriMo this year. The past couple years have been fun, but I gotta say… I participated in it one out of those three years and finished a manuscript. I can cross that off the bucket list. Participation is fun and all, but this year I’ve decided I don’t just have to be creative in November.

I got my idea early this year and just couldn’t keep it in. Not even after compiling a database of all of my favorite stuff to create a killer mash-up generator – shout out to Ben for writing the script to make it happen. Not even with the promise of literary abandon and excitement. Not even with the sweet, sweet promise of a seal of achievement.

I think a big part of it is that a group of good friends in the past three years got together to take the challenge, but also to up the stakes. We’d toss stuff into hats for each other to write about and see what came out. But, as groups of adults are wont to do, some procreated, some got busy with their lives, tragedies struck. It’s just not gonna come together. Without that collaborative event, I think this year I’ll start working early. I think I’ve started to learn what a lot of NaNo critics say:

Why should we put all of this effort into just November?

I’ll be creative when I goddamn feel like it.

I felt creative three days ago and posted a bit from the most recent project, tentatively titled ‘Occupancy’ (you might even still see some of it here). And then, I heard a ridiculous little voice say ‘just wait, it’s two weeks until November!‘

I strangled that little voice before it could say anything else as colossally stupid.

NaNoWriMo - hannity — I wonder if the little voice looked anything like this idiot…

Because why defer that which makes me feel right in the world (though writing a story about a seemingly abandoned apartment complex-slash-prison being a thing that makes me feel good is kind of frightening)? Why put it off when all of the cylinders are firing exactly as I want them to? Procrastination for the sake of Nano feels suddenly dumb. I can use that idea generator anytime I want. I don’t need target word counts, I don’t need a feel-good certificate from total strangers.

I need to sit my ass in my chair and work on my stories. I need to pump out words because they’re the right words, not because of an artificial time constraint. I loved NaNo the years I participated, and some great stuff came out of it. But, this year, I think I’m in it because I want to be a writer. I want to have something I’m doing all of the eleven other months of the year too.

So I’m gonna write at my own pace this year. I’m gonna do my thing how I’d like to.

Cause the guy stuck in this weird apartment complex I’ve created isn’t going to go insane on his lonesome.

Better get writing.

October 24, 2014 0