Writing Challenges
This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends went a little differently. Instead of each of us submitting prompts and being assigned someone else's, we all got the same prompt: In the shadow of the hanged man was…
My immediate thought was this is the beginning of the Magical Underground Railroad story. The scenes I couldn't write a year ago, of the elven howes being open and elves coming out, and that first encounter with runaway slaves which led the Fair Folk to become involved in the abolitionist cause, albeit in an elvish way that is at some times orthogonal to human mindsets.
And then I tried to actually write it and the story seemed to be just fighting me. At first I thought it was just a matter of being so busy with family medical stuff and yet another convention, then vehicle problems. But the further I went, the more I became convinced that I had the wrong POV character and quite possibly the wrong starting point -- but there just wasn't time to start over and still produce a text.
Yet the image remains sharp and clear in my mind, of the hanging-tree as menacing warning to those who would assist escaped slaves, and the fleeing slaves' profound fear at the implicit threat in it. It's something I want to get written properly, so that I can write that whole novel, or perhaps series of novels.
I did manage to get a story written for the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Writing Challenge. It's a mundane story, although I was definitely thinking of the school where I went to the first few years of grade school when I wrote it.
As always, if you'd like to participate in Odd Prompts, just send your prompt in to oddprompts@gmail.com to be assigned a prompt of your own. Or if you're not up to the commitment of trading prompts, you can always check out the spare prompts and see if any of them tickle your creativity.
There will be a new word and picture prompt up at Indies Unlimited on Saturday. Until then, the polls will open tomorrow for voting on the Readers' Choice Award, and will close at 5PM on Thursday.
In the meantime, keep writing.
My immediate thought was this is the beginning of the Magical Underground Railroad story. The scenes I couldn't write a year ago, of the elven howes being open and elves coming out, and that first encounter with runaway slaves which led the Fair Folk to become involved in the abolitionist cause, albeit in an elvish way that is at some times orthogonal to human mindsets.
And then I tried to actually write it and the story seemed to be just fighting me. At first I thought it was just a matter of being so busy with family medical stuff and yet another convention, then vehicle problems. But the further I went, the more I became convinced that I had the wrong POV character and quite possibly the wrong starting point -- but there just wasn't time to start over and still produce a text.
Yet the image remains sharp and clear in my mind, of the hanging-tree as menacing warning to those who would assist escaped slaves, and the fleeing slaves' profound fear at the implicit threat in it. It's something I want to get written properly, so that I can write that whole novel, or perhaps series of novels.
I did manage to get a story written for the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Writing Challenge. It's a mundane story, although I was definitely thinking of the school where I went to the first few years of grade school when I wrote it.
As always, if you'd like to participate in Odd Prompts, just send your prompt in to oddprompts@gmail.com to be assigned a prompt of your own. Or if you're not up to the commitment of trading prompts, you can always check out the spare prompts and see if any of them tickle your creativity.
There will be a new word and picture prompt up at Indies Unlimited on Saturday. Until then, the polls will open tomorrow for voting on the Readers' Choice Award, and will close at 5PM on Thursday.
In the meantime, keep writing.