I realized something on Saturday: I was only 600 words into a story I’m pretty sure is going to end up clocking in at the 7k mark, and I only had the rest of the day to finish it if I wanted to maintain the one-story-per week challenge. So I decided to hold off on it and wrote up a quick 500 word flash fiction titled “RomanticHandsHolding.gif”, which I’m pretty sure will be disregarded as spam whenever I email it out for publication consideration. This story is written entirely through cell phone notifications, and I had a lot of fun trying to piece it all together. I guess now that the new week has started, I’ll return to the longer story, currently titled “Scraps”. Pretty sure I can knock out a decent first draft by the next Saturday. If not, feel free to execute me. I know you want to. You’re practically drooling just at the thought of it.
Tag Archives: story-a-week
StoryAWeek #2: “A Nervous Sleep”
As mentioned previously on the blog, I’m attempting to write a short story once a week for the year of 2017, and possibly for every week afterward until I finally die, and maybe even a few weeks after that, too.
Story #2 was tricky to write. I actually had to write it twice before I felt comfortable enough to consider it finished. The first draft ended up being 4,200 words. It was dogshit. I couldn’t figure out how to approach it. I wrote it from the POV of the villain–this creepy-as-shit traveling magician–and it killed all the atmosphere. Sometimes writing from the POV of the “baddie” can ruin a story, especially in horror, because the more you can sympathize with the designated monster, the less fear you feel, right?
Anyway. I tossed the 4,200 words and rewrote it not just from the POV of a different character, but also in second-person, which is a style I’ve always wanted to try but never had enough courage to actually follow-through with before. Not only is it told in second-person present tense, but it’s written from the POV of two different people. The final word count ended up being 6,100 words. I think it’s pretty solid. It’s loosely based off a real interaction I had with a weird magician who stumbled into my hotel one night and performed a spontaneous magic show in the lobby for several hours.
It’s called “A Nervous Sleep”, which could change ten seconds after I post this blog.
StoryAWeek #1: “And All the World Drops Dead”
As I mentioned before, I’m participating in 2017’s A Story a Week Challenge, which means I am attempting to write a new short story every week. I am keeping progress of the challenge on the blog for reasons I haven’t quite figured out.
The first story of 2017 is titled “And All the World Drops Dead”. While writing it, I’d titled it “Poison (Deadly Nightshade)” but I think the new one is an improvement. The story is about two women (one cis, one transgender) driving around LA, high and drunk with a gun. There’s also a supernatural entity involved, but I’d rather not spoil the surprise.
I really love these two characters (Layla and Sylvia) and hope to write more about them in the future. I am a believer that most novels should be short stories and most short stories are already too long, but with this particular one, I’m thinking I could easily expand it into a novella or novel someday in the future. But for right now, I’m perfectly satisfied with its length of 4,000 words.
I’ll update y’all if and when I sell it. Until then, stay tuned for next week! Will I write another story, or will I fail like the poor pathetic sack of meat I am?
I GUESS WE’LL FIND OUT.
2017’s Story-a-Week Challenge
I’ll be trying to participate in 2017’s Story-a-Week Challenge, which is pretty self-explanatory. Every week this year I will attempt to begin and finish a new short story. The word count doesn’t matter. I won’t be doing this alone. Other much more talented folks like Jessica McHugh, Jay Wilburn, MIchael David Wilson, and others I don’t have the energy to name right now are also joining me. I don’t know if I’ll make every week but I’ll certainly try. I’ll write weekly updates on this here blog about how it’s going. I don’t know why this is something I feel like others will want to read about. It really isn’t. But I’m gonna do it anyway because who the fuck even reads this blog