The Machine of Ideas and a New Story
I finally finished Paul Jessup's class (the one I mentioned in the last post), and for me, it was well worth it. Some of the things he talked about was stuff I've done in the past, liek the list of obsessions and the ten first lines, but he also had some cool new things for me to play with.
And it doesn't hurt to be remionded of the things that have worked for you before and that you've forgotten about :P
10 First Lines:
Today I played around with writing ten opening lines. Some are eh, some are oh? and some are oooh okay. Whatever, it's a fun way to start generating ideas to play with at a later stage.
What Happened with That Other Short Story?
The one I was writing last week? Well, I managed to keep it under 10k, so I guess that's a win? It turned out to be working through my trauma about losing Knysna to developers, lol, which is odd as I only lived there briefly. However, being there was formative and it changed me in ways that come through in my writing. So much of what I write is influenced by the landscape there, or by things that happened.
It starts like this, and goes on for a good eight thousand words, so we shall see if anyone buys it. On the plus side, the fodder for a future collection is piling up.
Image by Alan Dods from Pixabay
Off-season in Saltcove was storm-season, wind and rain and mist season. It was the season when the shops full of tourist trinkets covered their shelves with sheets and rattled the steel doors down over their windows. When the holiday cabins went dark on the hillside, and the wood gods came down from the pine plantations on the Dragonback to sleep on the quiet porches.
I've also resubbed some peieces, but omg looking for suitable open markets is a real ballache.
Life Stuff
This weekend I'll be heading out to the opposite coast of Scotland to go hang out with lovely writer-types from Glasgow, at the annual Burning of the Fires and Greeting of the Cows.
I hope to have lots of new ideas for next week's writing after that.
I'm also adding ideas to my future workshop on Writing and the Senses, and I think it's pretty solid now, with some helpful exercises. I just need to dig up some examples then put it all toegther in a pretty package.