• Exploding Cats are not writing.  They are an occasional perk of writing regularly.
• I chose to write to The First Line prompt not with the intention of performing a writing miracle during the middle of the work week, but with the intention of continuing forward motion.  If I miss deadline but finish a story, it will sell elsewhere (after their issue comes out).
• I am not going to perform heroics, bludgeoning my way through midweek brain death on sheer will.
• The point of this was to break those habits of thought.

*reads all that*

Yup.  That’s all true.  Good.

I’ve two hundred words.  I will not say things like ‘paltry sum’.  I will instead go add to them.

Good boy.

Edit:  More words.  Good boy.  I get ice cream.

Dinner with Cera & Ken was lovely.  Cera and I have been entirely failing to have time to talk for about a decade, so that was nice, and we knew each other when I was crucifying myself to demonstrate heroic love for someone that didn’t appreciate or believe it and she was having difficulties of her own.  We agree that we are both astonishingly more stable and happy now, and blame a large part of that one Ken & Shannon.  Love feast all around.

Of feasts:  the food was OMG!!!11!BBQ!!111BVDs good.  I had wild boar nachos, Shannon’s carne asada and tequilas (one of which was amazing) and bites of Cera’s tongue (the meat on her plate was tongue, you pervs) (dammit), all of which were extraordinary.

So, good.

Today I was cruising the intarwebs looking for a suitable writing prompt — (more…)

I am minutes away from hobbing and nobbing with Cera & Ken at Esparza’s Tex Mex Cafe, where I am told the margaritas are as margaritas ought to be.

Excellent.

So, the 24 Hour Writing Contest has come and gone, and I am, in general, pleased.  The topic, to be written up in 900 words or less, was:

The bells on the door were still echoing as she stepped further into the old toy store. The owner winked at her and turned back to his black and white television set.  She reached under the rack on the back wall and pulled it out. It was just where she’d left it last week. She approached the counter and put the item down.

He turned to her, grabbed the item with surprise, and said, “This is NOT for sale…”

My brain grabbed onto the petty details of the prompt and screamed.  ”What is at stake?”  ”What good would putting something not for sale in a hiding place for a week do?”  ”Why wouldn’t merchandise be for sale, and why would that be important at all?”  ”What sort of story can I write about a bargain basement conflict?”  I mean, unless the shopper pulls a gun, the merchant’s response if final.

So I had her pull a gun, and things went swimmingly.  Somewhere, (I think from Jeff, the alpha-geek of Corvallis) I heard “the only real plot hook is a dead body,” attributed to Agatha Christie (if she did say that, I haven’t been able to find evidence of it), but I broadened that to “…threat of a dead body.”

Title:  Apology.  896 words, tendered 51 minutes before deadline.  I have not yet gotten a receipt for the entry, but I am unworried; if it ended up in ether-void, I still have the story and will sell it somewhere else.

I have a passing dislike for the last few minutes before a contest begins.

Today I worked early, long, and largely without break.  My brain is cheese.  My wife worked excessively, and under huge stress.

No one hit us with a car today.

Pretty good day, then.