Intersected

237 words in 30 minutes for a short story I tentatively named Intersected. Had a head start from two weeks of thinking and an hour of drafting ideas, concepts and key words last week.

Inspired by recent attendance at CanCon in Ottawa, and meeting with Postscripts to Darkness Editors. I wanted to wrote a ghost story about a haunted virtual place. Added in a bit of Lovecraft, and a dash of my work on safety, and I think I have something that'll fill up to 2000 words and not much more.

Ordinary routine

I am most pleased with these two sentences:

She didn’t want to fall back on the old familiar routine she had done at many local high schools. It was juvenile, and felt worn out, with punchlines that were way too predictable. 

A series of words helps show how ordinary her stand-up comedy is: fall back, old, familiar, routine, local, juvenile, worn out, predictable.

The choice of the word routine, instead of stand-up, or comedy, or jokes, keeps the theme flat and boring, whereas those other words would liven it up.

By placing predictable as the last word of the sentence, the reader also has a chance to find the sentence predictable, so that I don't have to show a single joke from the routine. A good punchline always comes at the end, to deliver the punch. Here, I took away the force of the punch, leaving a string of words leading up to predictable which should give the reader the most opportunity to correctly guess how the sentence would end.

Every bit counts

Only 41 words tonight, but every bit counts. I just jotted down one-liners a paranoid policy analyst might utter, each of which can be expanded upon in its won chapter or in discussion with other characters.

Back at it

First real writing this year. Added 429 words tonight in a self-contained chapter. It could get expanded to three times that. Just had to get the core concept down. The comedienne works hard and has her thunder stolen at the last second. With no time to adapt, she utters FML. I need to add in a bit about the theme of obviousness and the unexpected.

Nanowrimo

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month, or Nanowrimo. Most of the material provided to motivate you also seems like a good way to whittle away the time. I think I'll avoid it most of the time. In any case, the goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, that's 1666 words per day. On a good blogging day I've done over 800 words per hour, but 400/hour may be more reasonable. I'll see what I average.221 in 15 min. A decent start.

Project Woolly Coelodont is what I'll be working on, and I won;t count what I've written so far, since I'll be rewriting most of it with changes in characters I've been thinking about. Notably, I need a butler.

1566 words

Good to attack Woolly Coelodont again. Now at 1566 words.

The short story contest idea I had needs to percolate, perhaps it'll be ready for next year's contest. For now still concentrating on this project, completing the Wheel of Time blog, and a laying the groundwork on a collaboration with a friend for another longer term project.

Which means slow progress. Sigh...

Short story contest

Deadline: 2 weeks to write a 7 page mystery short story. It took me from the time I saw the poster until I reached my car in the parking lot to come up with a brilliant bureaucrat oriented mystery.

The eternal question: Do I set aside other writing time to pursue this...?