Week Twenty Seven: Parented!

Read it. Read it and weep.

Between this and last week's story (or excerpt, I guess), I seem to be 1,290 words into a fantasy novel I had outlined about a month ago but then sat on. The great surprise is how much I enjoy writing a scene here and another scene there, rather than starting at the start and working my way through. I'm someone who has to watch movies and their sequels in the order they were intended. I'll never read the end of a book before I begin it (not to name names, Breda). 

But for some reason none of that applies here. Maybe it's because I have so much reverence for story that I'm terrified of writing a bad one, but if I can just sit down and tell myself Today, the merchant talks to Garith about parenting and taking responsibility... and also he's kinda drunk, it feels more like playing than work. I know some (or many) of the details will change later, but for now I'm just exploring character. And building something, scene by scene.

So the time has come, ladies and gents. I'm gonna try to write a book. I'm setting myself a deadline of October 31st for the rough draft (~90,000 words). Too ambitious? I defy your caution.

Please wish me luck (and lots and lots of impulse control).

Meanwhile, did this week's prompt do anything for your own writing?

Week Five: What happened to the mother as best parent stereotype?

...I don't know, what did happen to the mother as best-parent stereotype? Did something happen? Where was I when it happened?

I wrote this sometime in early November (early November! the first semester is almost over!) in Peter Corea's psychology class. It was clearly a reaction to something we had to read, but I can't remember what and don't think that I saved it.

My mother single-handedly raised my sister and I, and it is usually the case that the kids remain with the mother when divorce strikes. (Yes: "strikes." Like a tiger. Patiently waiting...) So perhaps I had a strong reaction to something that tickled my wounded-child-of-divorce bone?

Or maybe this was more a reaction to something asserting that men and women were equally suited to be nurturing, parentally attentive blah blah blahs? The context is totally missing here, and without that, the sentence is not something I necessarily feel to be true.

So. What to write about...?