A Funny Thing Happened . . .

I missed the Monday blog post on my other blog, but other than that my week was going pretty well until I got to Thursday and realized I didn’t have my prompt story done yet. So what did I do instead of working on the story? I spent the afternoon with the daughter and granddaughter up in Peterborough shopping. And then we went out to dinner.

And furthermore, I don’t regret a bit of it. LOL

To be honest, I had a lot of trouble with last week’s prompt and I finally gave up and started looking at other prompts. Nothing that came up in any of the generators turned my crank, so then I started lonking at some of my prompt documents. These were prompts I copy/pasted into a document because I liked them, just not enough to work on right away. The prompt I came up with was: Only the very oldest people remembered a time when humans could see in colour

Once I figured out the basics – how to tell the story, who was telling it, etc. – I wrote it pretty quickly. It ended up around 400 words and I put it up on my blog, scheduling it to appear at regular time on Friday. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

And then a funny thing happened. I realized I really liked this story. It was pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. I liked it so much I thought of where I could send it for publication. So Friday morning, before it appeared, I checked the submission requirements of the e-zine I wanted to send it to and they do not accept stories that have appeared on a personal blog, even ones like mine that have a readership of eight people.

So I deleted the post and later that day I wrote a new story from a new prompt. Don’t get me wrong, I liked that story too (even though it started to run a little long) but not enough to think about submitting it somewhere.

This is actually a really big step for me. I normally just accrue big piles of stories (and poetry) – I write them and then I don’t really do anything with them. I remember I did in the beginning, you know, back in the dark ages when I first started to write. I optimistically sent stuff out on a regular basis and I’ve got the rejection slips to prove it. I don’t think it was discouragement from being rejected that made me stop, I think it was just my focus shifted to other things.

But I’ve been writing flash fiction for several years now and it some of it isn’t half bad. I don’t know why I don’t do anything with it. And the prompt stories – I churn them out and because they’re just blog exercises I don’t really do anything with them either. All it would take is a little polish and some of them would be pretty good too.

Maybe submitting this story, whether it’s accepted or not, will be the start of a new trend. One can only hope.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

Editing – 0 pages
Oh me, oh my. I’m starting to see an unfortunate trend here.

Blood Ties – 1,259 words
I’m starting to gain a little momentum, but it still seems to be a steep upward slope.

Blog Posts – includes the post for my regular blog, but not the prompt story.
0 (regular blog)+ 866+ 388 = 1,254 words total

Weekly Prompt – 402 + 819 = 1,221 words

Total Words – 3,734

New Prompt
I think this prompt comes from Seventh Sanctum but I’m not sure.
This story involves a lonely sprite, a campsite, a dead body, a tea cup, and an old grudge.

Goals From Last Week:
If you read my regular blog, you’ll notice I didn’t have a post up on Monday. I live in a quiet town and don't really get out and do much, so I really didn't have anything to talk about.

Blood Ties is inching its way along, but at least it’s still moving. Maybe there’s hope for me getting this done in time for Christmas yet. Cross your fingers.

I already explained about the prompt snafu at the beginning of this post. I just need to clean that first story up a bit before sending it out into the wild. But two prompt stories in two days – way to go me! LOL

I didn’t so much as forget about the editing, I just never got around to finding something new to edit.

Goals For This Week:
1. I guess by now it goes without saying that I need more new words on Blood Ties. By hook or by crook I’ll get that book done yet!
2. New prompt story – and preferably using the prompt I picked out for the week. For sure I want to start it earlier in the week instead of waiting until the last minute.
3. I’m planning on doing an anthology of flash stories for this year’s book flood book. Maybe I could start editing the stuff I want to include in that – killing two birds with one stone.

And there’s what I’ll be up to this week. How about you?