deathpixie

So I'm three days behind on nano_wrimo and desperately needing inspiration. So, original short story ideas, any genre except romance, go! I need at least two, but will take more for hoarding purposes.

After the brief hiccup that was last Friday night and too much Persecco with Mindy and Fatimah, I am once again, back on schedule. Stories 7 and 8 went up tonight.

I have to say, I'm getting better at this writing caper. :)

November, the season for crazy writing projects, otherwise known as nanowrimo. Not for me, however - I'm going to be doing my 30 shorts in 30 days, so I can get back on track with 52 Pick Up. Yep, it's nano_wrimo for me!

Edit: And we're off!

52 Pick Up is happening again. I'll be playing catch up over the next week or so.

And yes, it's a baseball ghost story.

Thirty stories in thirty days.

I did it. The first project especially for me, not for the benefit of anyone else, that I've completed since the depression started. If that's not a sign of my beginning recovery, I don't know what is.

My counsellor asked me what I'd do with these once I was done. I think I'll go back through them, tidy some of them up a bit, print them out and bind them. That way I'll have something tangible to say "yes, I did something difficult and creative, and I finished what I started".

So yeah. Feeling pretty good (albeit tired after a long day of work after being off sick last week).

Sequel to this piece, based on this image.

Sunset, when it finally came, was blood-red and stank of sulfur.

There was only one airship left now, the others vanished in the never-ending light of the previous days. Its crew was nameless, almost faceless, identical with their hair bleached white blonde and their faces tanned dark brown, save for the circles of white skin left by their goggles. Their clothing was uniformly bleached white also, no traces left of the original colour.

As individual as angels, they floated above a land of smoke and shadows.

So, here I am, half-way through nano_wrimo. I thought I'd do a little pause for reflection, since I'm feeling reflective.

Last year, I only made it to the 17th, and that time I not only had a few days of missed posts, but I'd also recycled various bits of fiction I had on my harddrive when inspiration failed. This year, I've only missed one day - the 10th - due to an insane day's work and no computer access that night whatsoever, and I posted two fics by Wednesday afternoon. Everything has also been 'fresh' - nothing previously written and reused, everything written that day.

I'm feeling rather proud of myself, actually.

The difference this year is that I've figured out I don't have to be brilliant - I just have to write. And in a way, having the 'stage' to myself is actually taking off some of the pressure, since I'm not reading other people's work and feeling inadequate. I'm using online sources for ideas - webcomics, random idea generators, image webbsites, news feeds - and I'm allowing myself to write as much, or as little, as is needed.

It's funny. One of my favourite pieces was Ghost Story. Two sentences, that's all. But those two sentences say more than the paragraphs I wrote and rewrote and finally deleted because they didn't work. I never thought something so short could actually have so much depth to it.

The other thing I'm noticing is that I'm not holding my breath waiting for feedback any more. I did, the first few posts, but then I realised that I'm getting enjoyment out of the words, the exercise of writing, and the fact I'm able to come up with something different every day. Sure, feedback is great - we all like the validation of someone saying "hey, good story" - but where I would once curl into a ball of self-disgust ("I suck, I can't write, everyone hates what I'm doing"), I can actually sit back and look at what I've done and say, "Yes, this works, this is good. This needs some work, this was just pure coasting and it shows, but this? This is fantastic."

For me to be able to do that is a huge step.

Listen closely to the whispering.

Can you hear it? The voice of the city? The pulse, the beat, the very breath? The city is alive, a sleeping presence, and if you listen carefully, you can hear it breathing.

Hope that its dreams are pleasant ones.

It's November, and while many of my friendslist are doing the nanowrimo, the National Novel Writing Month, I'm going for the other version, nano_wrimo, NanoWriMo. 30 short stories, one per day throughout November.

Here's my first.

For post-Halloween, a zombie story. Written in the style of Max Brooks' World War Z, one of the interviews that didn't make the final cut.

( The Dead Line.Collapse )