The thing I found most challenging was to put plot in there and not just present a situation. For me, that’s the difference between a snapshot and a story. 

When I looked back over my entries for the competition, I thought that my third entry was closer to a situation than a true story:

Planting the Seed

Sitting awkwardly and gripping the tools, there is a moment of reverence before the act and a whispered prayer for fertility.

In an uncomfortable moment, she can’t help but wonder if people will be able to tell that the baby’s father was a turkey baster.

(I admit, I was going more for the humour in that.)

I think this one was closer to having a plot, though the middle is wide and gaping. It could be filled with many different things, but I think part of the punch is that it isn’t specific:

Casualties

Attention is a click of heels, perfect creases, heads lifted, jaws set, and chests filled proudly with the hope of doing something good and right.

Four months later, heels click again, heads lift and jaws set as we wait for the gun salute in much shorter lines.

My favourite is still the first one that I wrote for the competition. I can’t decide if it’s more situation than story; I have a story for it sneaking around in the back of my head, and it’s hard to say how much of that came through. It was one of those pieces that just gelled when I wrote it, and I always love when that happens.

Snow Love

I have the tears of a snowman at the kiss of your sun, welcoming your fire with a scarf slipping askew.

When you go, I will be the space left behind, warmed but empty.

When I took this to my writing group to do an exercise on writing stories this way, one of my writers asked me if the last phrase should be switched around – empty but warmed. I hadn’t even thought about it, but I think I like it the way it is; that downturn at the end feels right to me. There’s the notion that there is no love (s’no love! get it?) in this self-destructive relationship, and the narrator knows it.

I like this form – it’s fun to play with. Maybe I’ll do some more soon, practice with it a bit. Even just writing about it like this is giving me ideas. Maybe later, when my to-do list is a bit shorter.

So! What’s been happening? Let’s see…. I had a great day at Supanova – spent way too much money and went to a couple of talks. One was by a local author, who had some interesting things to say about getting started as a novelist. She has agreed to come and talk to my Creative Writing Group. Should be good!

Managed to get ahead on the Apocalypse Blog this week. It was so nice to be able to schedule posts and have them publish at more accurate times. I’m a detail-monkey, so I like these things to make sense and be appropriate (it is supposed to be a realtime blog). I’ve got the rest of this long weekend all written up, and once I’m done with this post, I’m going to edit and schedule those posts. Then I can put my feet up for the rest of Easter. Lovely.

I’ve been thinking about the next Writing Tips post – it’s about time I did another one. I’ve seen a lot of queries about dialogue recently, and it’s one of those subjects that often crops up in the writing groups. I just need to pull together some material and sort it out. It’s on my list.

I’m also thinking about doing book reviews. I know I’m opinionated enough! I don’t know if I have anything like time for that. I haven’t had time to read a book in a while, with all the writing I’ve been trying to cram in. Perhaps I’ll start with reading a whole book and then see what comes of it. Book on list, check.

I sent in a submission for Unsent Letters this week. Won’t hear back for a few weeks, probably, but it’s in there. Tick that off my list.

Working on another submission at the moment – this one is for the Accentuate Writer’s Anthology Competition. I’ve made a start – hopefully get it finished this weekend. 

Whee. So! Lots happening. More good stuff coming. Have a great Easter, everyone.

Last night was my writing group meeting. Great fun, as always! I had 16 people turn up – I think that’s the biggest turnout yet! I had forgotten what it was like to have so many people to handle. I enjoyed it, though, and got some good feedback on the piece I had turned in. Big group of us went to dinner afterwards – it’s good to get to know my writers more!

Today I struggled to get the AB posts up. I decided that I had a better idea for how today’s posts should go, so I wound up rewriting them. Which means that I also need to rewrite tomorrow’s, and probably Monday’s. Ahhhh.

I’ve got one of tomorrow’s posts sorted out. That should give me enough time to get the rest up and sorted. I think I’m going to call it a day for post-writing, as my head really isn’t in the right space. I know what I want to do with it, and I don’t want to ruin the momentum and feel of it because I was tired when I wrote it.

I managed to get the Chronology page up today, though, so that those new to the blog can see what comes where. Hopefully that’ll be useful. Almost come to the end of the Family section now. I have the name of the next one in mind; hopefully that’ll kick things up a notch, too. Not that the blog is lacking in excitement, I think (and hope!).

Today I got to the first marker on my pinboard for AB’s plot. Huzzah! I have been trying not to rush to the plot-markers I have already planned out, letting the story take its own path there. I didn’t want to rush past other things on the way, but tried to keep up the momentum at the same time. Two months in and we’re only just getting to the start of the stuff I’ve had in mind since we started this adventure – my goal of keeping it going for a full year is seeming possible at the moment. 

The next marker is much closer than 2 months away, though. Going to be time to throw some more (different) complications at them soon. Ahahahaha.

The Two Sentence Story competition for this week ends tomorrow. I’m curious to see what happens! My first entry is still doing well – it was in third place the last time I checked. Cross your fingers for me, or better yet, go give me lots of pretty stars! ;)

My aunt is coming over from NZ tomorrow. Have to get more AB written and scheduled. It is entirely possible that my head might explode.

Maybe I should try a happy one out for size. Though, as has been pointed out, maybe I shouldn’t compete with myself. Hee hee. Fun though!

I recommend taking a look! Also, feel free to give my entry lots of pretty stars – you know you want to. ;) Cross your fingers for me! (Or rate entries. Rating might work better ;) ).

Lists are a good thing. All those bits that I have to get done laid out, and can be ticked off in a productive manner. It gives my OCD side a happy glow. 

So far today I have edited and scheduled up this week’s AB posts, poked Twitter with a stick and tweeted like an overcaffeinated loon, and sent out emails to my two writing groups to prepare for this month’s meetings. 

Last night I did the final edits on my novel and sent the submission in to the Debut Dagger competition. Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on it and helped me pull it into shape!

Still to go this weekend, I have to set my PC up for VPN access to work and test it. This is in case the rail strike goes ahead on the 16th Feb, as it is currently scheduled to do. No way I’m getting to the office if that happens, so I might as well work from home!

I also have to read and comment on a couple of writing pieces for my mum, take apart the vacuum system built into the house so I can clean it out, and plan the writing group meeting on Friday. I want to get a few more AB posts done, too, to give myself a bit of breathing space.

I’d like to start putting up some of the writing info that I amass for my writing groups on here. I’m finding that a lot of the same issues come up when we do exercises and workshop pieces. I’ve already got one piece up on the local writing forum, but there’s not much activity there at the moment. I think I’ll put them here too. No harm in that, right?

Right. So there’s my list for this weekend. Best get on with it, I suppose. ;)

The first meeting of my new writing group was on Tuesday night – the novelling group that a few of us from NaNo decided to get together.  We’re hoping to keep up at least some of NaNo’s momentum, to encourage each other to keep writing, to get to the end of the story, to edit and polish, and to submit.  I don’t know if we’re all aiming to submit these novels, but we all want to work on these works of ours, and we all want to improve on what we’re doing.

As first meetings go, it went all right.  Floundered somewhat to start with – I haven’t run a meeting like this before and it showed.  The fact that we all ordered dinner kinda got in the way, too, but that’s okay.  It was nice to eat and chat, and I didn’t mind that at all.  We were all catching up after the Christmas/New Year break, too.

I threw in the first few chapters of my novel to see what they made of it, and got lots of useful feedback.  I need to cut about 550 words out of the prologue and first chapter for the Debut Dagger competition, and the feedback I got will help me do that, I think.  I’ve looked at that particular part of the novel so much (and rewritten it from scratch about twice, including one change of tense) that it desperately needed fresh eyes.

So I have a lot of work to do this weekend (as the Dagger’s deadline is in about a week).  Which is good!  I’ll get that done and submitted, and then can relax a little bit in that regard.  But not completely – I am determined to keep plugging away at it.  I have lots I want to do with and to it, so I won’t be short of work there.

After the session, I put together a post for the forum about writing synopses – I did some research prior to the meeting and might as well share!  I’m hoping to get more things like that put together and posted up for people.  Should I put that sort of stuff on here too?  Might be good to have all my writing ramblings together in one place.

I’m trying not to add another thing to my list here – I really have enough to do at the moment, and I’m already riding the raggedy edge of my energy.  I need a list of ‘when I have time’ things.  In the meantime, there’s some novel-ripping in my immediate future.  Where’d my red pen go?

At least this one was easy – just upload it through the website and off it goes.  Now all I need to do is wait until they contact me.  I don’t expect to win, but you never know unless you try, right?

Part of my new writing kick is to start submitting to competitions and magazines.  To get my writing Out There more.  I’ve been writing for a long time, but never really had anything published – at least, not since I left uni.  It’s about time I did.  It’s about time I grabbed hold of this dream of mine and made it happen.

Fingers crossed, wish me luck, here’s hoping that I don’t fall on my face.

I’m gonna need a lot of short stories if I’m going to be doing all this submitting.  I think I need more hours in the day.