Week Nine: Microfiction week!

So here's the deal: these "weeks" are taking longer and longer to complete (Week Eight, for instance, was almost four months long), so for Week Nine we're going to try something different...

MICROFICTION!!!

(This is my caffeinated time. You be quiet.)

Microfiction (also called flash fiction, short-short stories, etc.) can be 200, 100, even 50 words long. After putting you all through a story 6000+ words long, I figured some brevity was in order.

This will also give me an excuse to fly through some of the more... I don't want to say "clichéd" but... beginner ideas I had during my freshman year. 

So! One a day, Monday through Friday. Get 'em all here (links will be added as they are posted):

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Week Eight: Fantasy-ed!

Week Eight's completed challenge can be found here!

This is the first true short story I've attempted since graduate school. In writing it, I had to overcome a number of self-imposed stumbling blocks that have kept me from attempting something just like this for many a year now. Basically, I had to get over myself. 

And the result...? Well, you decide.

Please, I would love some feedback on this one. What worked? What didn't? What do you hope to see more of? You can comment on this post, or on the story itself, or contact me directly. 

As I've mentioned, the intent here was to better flesh out one major character of my theoretical fantasy series. It took some time (you may have noticed), but, having done this, I truly believe that things will get easier from here. I feel... accomplished.

Anyway, check it out! And I've hinted before (and the story itself has a disclaimer on it), but there's some dark stuff in there. I don't want to upset anyone, but I also don't want to spoil the story, so please contact me if you want to know what exactly that dark stuff is before you read it.

Reflections, and Week Nine's several challenges (microfiction week!), to come this weekend.

Another Week Eight update!

Just a quick post to let you know that I'm still plugging away at the shapeless, ever-growing mass of words that is Week Eight's challenge. 

Because things have been hectic for me (two jobs, domestic responsibilities, social commitments, holidays, birthdays, Dragon Age: Origins...), I've had to find a more flexible way to write in the few spare moments I have. So when I'm home, I'll type up what I've written longhand and then try to write past that. When I'm away from home, however, I'll try to write at least two sentences from where I remember leaving off.

This wasn't a deliberate stroke of genius so much as simply what happened one day, but the end result was that, over the course of a week, I ended up accidentally rewriting the latest passage of the story. Later, when I discovered my mistake, I was actually able to combine bits and pieces of both into a paragraph that was stronger than either previous version. Voltron-style. I had been stuck on that paragraph, and somehow this process allowed me to find an intuitive way past it.

So anyway, it's coming along, and as a reprieve from longer works (and even longer waits between works), I think for Week Nine I'm going to try a microfiction week wherein I burn through one prompt a day, Monday–Friday. This will be a good excuse to build some momentum back up, and also to get some of the truly stupid prompts I've been avoiding out of the way. 

How's it going for you?