writing
I was kind of flailing around tonight regarding writing. "Ambergrin Hall" and "Christmas Ghosts" of course still have miles to go before they're done, and I also recently started reworking one of my super-team stories that originally appeared in STAPA back in ... oh, probably 1988? 1989? (Vanguards #5, the origin story, for those few of you who are familiar with STAPA.) But none of them seemed to be willing to fall under the whip and be worked on.
Various friends on AIM started suggesting different prompts -- Chris is dying for me to write a story based on one of his photographs; I found a photograph on Joel's facebook that seemed like it might spark something; Michelle suggested a bit of a lyric from a song by Tokio Hotel (that she couldn't quite quote verbatim). Still nothing seemed quite right. Then Nephew Maxie mentioned a song lyric he'd been working on: "I am not a fan of cold weather or tap water," it went. Somehow, that interested me.
I managed to put out about 1,024 words. Nowhere near a complete story. In fact, it was only in the last couple of paragraphs that the narrator really started to clue me in on who he is and where the story is going. So this 1,000 words really just sort of sets up the characters (who are both still nameless, and may actually end up staying that way -- it sort of feels "right").
Here's the scary part: the narrator is a character from "Christmas Ghosts." A character who never speaks a word in that book but has a huge impact on what propels that book forward. This story, in essence, tells what led up to the event I describe the aftermath of in "Christmas Ghosts."
I had no idea this guy had a story to tell. Apparently, he does. And not necessarily a happy one, either.
Various friends on AIM started suggesting different prompts -- Chris is dying for me to write a story based on one of his photographs; I found a photograph on Joel's facebook that seemed like it might spark something; Michelle suggested a bit of a lyric from a song by Tokio Hotel (that she couldn't quite quote verbatim). Still nothing seemed quite right. Then Nephew Maxie mentioned a song lyric he'd been working on: "I am not a fan of cold weather or tap water," it went. Somehow, that interested me.
I managed to put out about 1,024 words. Nowhere near a complete story. In fact, it was only in the last couple of paragraphs that the narrator really started to clue me in on who he is and where the story is going. So this 1,000 words really just sort of sets up the characters (who are both still nameless, and may actually end up staying that way -- it sort of feels "right").
Here's the scary part: the narrator is a character from "Christmas Ghosts." A character who never speaks a word in that book but has a huge impact on what propels that book forward. This story, in essence, tells what led up to the event I describe the aftermath of in "Christmas Ghosts."
I had no idea this guy had a story to tell. Apparently, he does. And not necessarily a happy one, either.