Posts

Flash Fiction Challenge

The wonderful Chuck Wendig over at terribleminds has challenged his readers to write the first act of a scary story in only 1,000 words . The aim here is for someone or someones to pick up the story's threads and continue the tale, writing a second act, if you will. Of course, from there the challenge will move onto the third act until the narrative is finished in a wonderful example of collaborative storytelling. So, as a big fan of Chuck's challenges here's the first part of my story (as of yet, untitled): Dave sat down to his breakfast and watched his new neighbor, Bob, go ape-shit on number twenty-eight’s lawn. Dave licked butter from his fingers, swallowed his first taste of hot coffee and went over to the window for a closer look. Bob was on one knee, hands tearing at the skin of his throat, body shaking like a guppy fish in its final death-throes. Idiot , Dave thought, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Goddamn show off . He returned to the breakfast nook and guzz

Writer's Block

Is there such a thing as writer's block? I think there is always something for a writer to do to combat the dreaded block: there are plenty of writing prompts if the ol' idea banks are empty and as long as you add something to the page you are making progress. But what about that dreaded period, post-novel, where it seems like such a Herculean task to start a new book. For me, that's where Writer's Block rears its ugly head. Which ideas are worth their salt? Is this something I want to spend the next three months of my life working on? Will it keep a reader engaged for 80K words or more? But i suppose that's my internal 'editor' talking. And that's where the block comes from. To hell with that voice. There's nothing wrong with free writing or stream-of-consciousness work. Perhaps that's my next call...