This was fun, last weekend — so why not give it another shot?
First person to chime in on the comments with a writing prompt, gets some shiny new micro-fiction produced on demand.
Check out last week’s product — Botanists fight dirty.
“Take Binky with you!” Scarlet sobbed into the summoner’s chest.
Carbunkle looked across the weeping philosopher’s head into the dead eyes of the monkey, Binky.
Binky put down the piece of toast he was slathering jam upon. With the jam-encrusted knife he drew three slashes of raspberry across his forehead.
Simian War Paint — Carbunkle recognized it immediately.
The monkey crunched down on his toast, and turned to pack his bag.
“Wake up, child.”, the cold voice said.
The dark figure stood over the rough brown blanket that covered the child, and the smooth stone slab that was the room’s only bed.
A patina of ice formed on the blanket as he approached. Candle-wick veins, wax-hands — long fingers snatched the blanket away.
Revealing only a pile of rubble, carefully placed.
The figure allowed himself a moment of appreciation at the child’s audacity.
Then he turned and called for his hounds.
I see you, blank page.
Getting cocky — acting like you’re all that. AND A BAG OF CHIPS.
Well, guess what?
I’m about to soldier on – I’m going to write anyway.
I’m going to fill you with TERRIBLE PROSE.
Yeah, deal with that.
I might even put in some CLOUD DESCRIPTIONS and ADVERBS.
I’m crazy like that.
I’ve set myself a writing schedule for the new year, where I need to complete five pages of my first draft each week. That may not seem super-ambitious, but I write when I have free moments at work, or a spare hour I can snatch at random. My live is not conducive to a set writing time each day — so five pages a week is a good stable amount that I can keep up. Just enough pressure to keep me working, but not so steep that I feel overwhelmed.
It’s been going well, honestly — I’ve stayed a couple of pages ahead, and haven’t had any difficulty staying on track. For example, this week my goal is 65 pages — and I’m sitting on 63 already. Next week the goal is 70 pages, the week after that 75.
My question is this: Should I stick to my writing schedule as-is, OR simply add five to whatever my page total is at the end of each week? So, if I finish this week at 67 pages, the next week’s goal is 72 pages.
What do you think? What works best for you?
In working on the rough draft of That Thing, I’m realizing more and more that I’m using the Third Person-Omniscient Perspective extensively AND I’m switching between two characters. I’m only doing it at natural breaks in the action, but I realize I’m quickly treading into the realm of FORBIDDEN FICTION.
I’m not going to stress out about it too much at the moment — if I hate it/think it’s confusing, I’ll restructure when I edit.
But — BUT. Anyone got some input on whether I’m freaking out about nothing, or if I should take this more seriously?
“A mere tune?” Elora’s eyebrows rose, twisting her scar oddly.
“Music is the only true magic left. It can span time and space, bring joy and sorrow – the stories of entire generations wound up in a few simple notes. The right melody at the right moment can lead an army to triumph, bring a heart to ruin or fill it overflowing with love. Music is the wind that blows across all of history, everywhere and nowhere – commonplace and vital. Every soul can create it, every soul is affected by it, every soul recognizes it. Clearly the Precursors had more respect for it than you, barbarian.”
[Quoted from City of Rain: Book Nine of Lodestar.]
Her overcoat was stiff with congealed agar and the shattered glass of a dozen Erlenmeyer flasks. She slid her battered arms into the 
sleeves, and tried to ignore the bullet wound in her leg. A pair of pipettes were still lodged in the right sleeve of the jacket, as well as some tissue cultures from the family Malvaceae. The battered gumshoe shook the detritus from her coat sleeve, and reached into her pockets — finding her two best friends right where they belonged.
A pair of ugly Colt revolvers, with worn pearl handles. Watson and Crick — the only partners she’d ever needed in this dirty job.
It had been quite a dust-up in the back offices of ECO-RICH, the multi-national botany conglomerate. She’d been called in on the case, when a pair of their top researchers had turned to whistleblowers–setting up interviews with dozens of prominent science and home gardening blogs. Then they’d turned up dead. Both researchers had simultaneous heart-attacks during a purported sex romp in a jury-rigged jacuzzi powered by eighteen Bunsen burners.
But then the autopsy reports had come back: Baby carrots.
Baby carrots lodged in their aortas.
A contact on the force, Overstreet, had sent her the tip — and she’d made her way down to the offices of ECO-RICH to do a little snooping.
A brace of white-coat goons had been working late, and before she could spool up an alibi — things had gotten frisky.
An ethno-biologist with arms like a steel trap got the drop on her, grabbing her from behind and pinning her arms to the side. Without hesitation she kicked off hard from the face of an approaching zoologist, propelling her captor into a nearby Spectrograph. A weasely ginger had pulled a snub-nose out of his pocket protector and gotten a shot off, grazing her leg — while the other researchers tossed Petri dishes and glassware like a tipsy housewife when she finds a collar with the wrong lipstick in the wash.
Crossing through the test tube hailstorm, she’d headbutted the ginger sap — the sound of his nasal cartilage snapping was sweet music, and a pair of electron microscopes ripped off a nearby table helped her finish the symphony on the rest of the jolly green thugs.
The gumshoe reached down, and riffled through the pockets of the closest researcher. She pulled open their Twitter account, and banged out a warning.
— Just got the chloroform forcibly removed from my cell wall’s chloroplasts by a punitive ass-kicking. #ECO-RICH #MURDER #SCIENCE SLEUTH #WATCHOUT
She tossed the device aside, and walked back out into the late night rain.
She was on the case, and had a very promising beginning to the data field required for the x-axis of her perspective bar graph.
A bar graph of justice, and a chart of pain.
[For Jargon Journalist. Take some time and go fondle her comment section.]
I’ve been feeling a little guilty — I promised some fresh, blog-only content in the new year — and I absolutely have not delivered. I’ve been writing a bunch for Lodestar and That Thing, but nothing fresh for here.
So, the first person who yells at me in the comments gets to pick a topic/genre/main character’s name. Give me a crazy ass writing prompt!
We all write in the shadow of the mountain. At the peak — success. Whatever you think of as the goal of your writing — but I imagine most of us here on WP are all thinking along similar lines.
Writing as day job. Paying the bills with your writing, and your stupid, silly ideas.
Having someone read your writing — and say, “This stuff? This stuff right here? This is good stuff. The 
best stuff. I want to give up some space in my brain, and put your stuff in it.”
You know what I mean — they way that all of us make room in our heads for other creator’s characters, places, and ideas. For me, there can be no higher honor.
If you just think about the base of the mountain, it’s kind of exciting. There are many simple, easy, satisfying things you can do to prepare yourself for the climb. Like starting a blog, or making a writing schedule, or trying out different styles of writing, or just finding a really comfortable pencil.
And the simple magic of putting your head down and just writing.
But, sometimes you accidentally glance up — and take a long look towards the summit.
“How the hell am I going to get up there?”
There are so many pilgrims battling their way up the slopes, many never reaching the peak despite skill, luck and endless determination. And, let’s face it, there are many successful writers up on the peak who certainly don’t deserve it.
It’s freaking daunting, is what I’m saying.
As a logical, sane human you have to accept that even if you finish your work, even if it’s really, really good — there are still so many pitfalls, crevasses, and awful things that can happen in between that and reaching the peak.
So, yeah — this is the part where I’m supposed to have some advice, or say something supportive.
How about this?
Those moments you’re looking up at the top of the mountain, and feeling small, depressed and defeated — look over to the left, where I’m sitting. You can look at me, and I’ll look at you — and then I’ll shrug, and make a farty noise.
It’s not much, but it’s on the table.
And accept that the doubt is part of the gig, and get back to climbing. No use to worrying about the trolls in the heights, until you’ve made your way out of base camp.
spell-sword.com 