I was given a book, “The Writer’s Lab (a place to experiment with fiction)” by Sexton Burke. I can’t tell you much about the book yet, but one of the first things it had me do was write down my favorite authors. There are a lot of them. Fredric Brown, Edgar Allen Poe, Melissa Michaels, […]
Read More It’s about CharacterThis week’s flash fiction presented a unique series of problems, both expected and unexpected. The prompt itself was a picture of a cable car: The target word count: 75 words (give or take 5) My mind went immediately to ‘Where Eagles Dare’ and I came up with the rough draft almost immediately. Martin looked at […]
Read More Stories in the 75 word rangeSorry for the delay, I kinda got waylaid and stunned into inaction. Nothing bad, not by a long shot. Engineering dream won! So… back to our regularly scheduled Anatomy of an Edit. It’s time once again for my behind the look at the writing of a story. This challenge was actually harder for me because […]
Read More Anatomy of an Edit – Engineering DreamA friend of mine expressed their sadness at a friend’s passing and lamented the fact that they never got to tell that friend how they really felt about them. When I tried, and failed, to express my sympathies, I ended up sitting in front of my computer composing a poem (half poem, half lyric). It’s […]
Read More Poetry: Part 1 Words and emotionWe all like to put our best foot forward. As a writer, I want people to be interested in what I write, I want them to see what I can do and I do not want to fall flat. So when I went to Flash!Friday and nothing called to me… I had a decision to […]
Read More To Post or not to PostAnother flash fiction, another tale of editing in the fast lane. This week, I got a late start and ended up doing a lot of adjusting sections of story as I went. I had less than an hour to write before it was due and since I was in a hurry, I didn’t keep as […]
Read More Anatomy of an Edit: Part VCapbreton. Photo courtesy of Makunin, @ Pixabay It’s that time again. Today’s prompt: Target Word Count : 200 (give or take 10) I saw the picture at 02:00 this morning, and couldn’t really think of what do to with it. The picture is of the seas bunkers that were built in Capbreton, France during WWII, […]
Read More Anatomy of an edit: Part 4Yesterday I posted my edits for the flash fiction contest I’d entered, taking the story down to it’s required 150 words (give or take 25), and I said, that it would be a better story if I could take it to the 300-500 range. This sounded like a good exercise to me, and so this […]
Read More FlashFiction rewriteFriday was once again ‘Flash!Friday’ and I almost didn’t participate. I didn’t have anything, not really and the word count requirement was even more challenging: 100 words, no more, no less. At 18:00 I sat down and told myself “If you can write a 300-500 word story in an hour or two, this should be […]
Read More The anatomy of an edit, part IIOnce or twice a year, I take my phone off the hook, go ‘back home’ and go to the movies… all weekend. I catch up on movies that I haven’t seen in a while, brush up on the originals when there are sequels in the theater so that they’re fresh in my mind, but mostly […]
Read More Never take a writer to the movies