Meeting the Challenge(s)
I'm still on a writing binge. And as they say (whomever "they" are), make hay while the sun shines. I have another flash fiction idea from last weekend. I'm not quite as in love with this one as I was the other two, but I think I can make it work. I'm hoping to be pleasanty surprised by the time I'm finished. But I haven't even started writing on it yet, because I've been busy with my other writing.
Monday was kind of a lost cause as far as writing goes, because I had other things going on. But I managed to get "A Wolf's Cry" submitted online. Then last night, I submitted "Doppeldreamer" to another online market. Then I prepared "A Point In Time" for submission through the mail. It was almost fun, putting the package together, printing the labels, re-learning how to write a formal letter (I even put the Enc. notation at the bottom to make it all official-like), and physically signing my name on it. But I can imagine how much hassle and money it must have cost when that was the normal way to submit things. All but the most successful writers probably spent more money on submitting work than they ever earned in publication. I really do appreciate the Age of Email. I spent time after work today trying to locate an automated postal kiosk, since I got out of work too late to make it to a post office. But I found one.
And finally, there's the Poem A Day challenge that I wanted to try out. I completely forgot that it started yesterday until it was about 8:30pm and I was already in the middle of my other projects. But at about 10:30, I got started on my poem and finished at exactly 11:55pm. It wasn't bad, considering I haven't written a line of poetry in maybe ten years. I thought I would just write a short blurb along the lines of a haiku just to get the challenge out of the way, but it ended up being a whole page. It would definitely need some work before I could even consider publishing it somewhere, but it was a pretty decent first draft.
Tonight, I need to decide what to do next. I had considered editing my story from last week, "Operation Dead Letter," but I think I should work on my new story idea first, just to make sure I meet the challenge. Then, if I want to spend the first part of next week editing both stories, I should have time to do that and still be true to the challenge of one story a week. Last week's challenge has already been met by writing the first draft. Why risk missing this week's challenge?
And, oh yeah! Another poem tonight. I need to pull out my quote books and see what I have.