A NEW WRITING CHALLENGE

Today is the first of June and as good a time as any to begin a new 30 day challenge. In the month of April, in honor of National Poetry Month, I posted a daily poem and art piece on my sister blog http://www.amarriageofpoetryandart.blogspot.com/. Now in honor of Short Story Month I am challenging myself to post a daily story on this blog. It will be a 20 minute free write from a daily writing prompt.

The inspiration for a twenty minute a day writing challenge came from my online writing teacher Len Leatherwood and her blog http://www.twentyminutesaday.wordpress.com/ Len is an amazing teacher and seeing her daily writing encouraged me to do the same on my own blog. My prompts will come from Melanie Faith. Melanie is a fabulous flash fiction and poetry writer and teacher. I've taken several classes online with her. Today I began a new flash fiction class with her. Melanie provides daily prompts to her students so I will use those for my free writes for this blog.

I'd also like to share with my readers my newest publication success. My short story "After the Ball" will be published online at http://www.metrofiction.com/  on Sunday June 3. Now I have 3 published short stories and am on my way to creating a short story chapbook or collection. "After the Ball" is a spoof on Cinderella that was great fun to write. If you wander over to the site on Sunday I hope you enjoy reading it.

I'll post my first free write exercise later today. Hope to see you all here following my daily stories.
Wish me luck.

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 1, 2012 at 12:45 PM

    You read my mind! I was going to write to you today and ask when you would get back to blogging because I've missed your posts. Looking forward to reading your short stories. And Congrats on the latest publication!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poems for Mother's Day

Image
Every once in a while I go back to my first poetry collection. I re-read the poems and peruse the art work. With a title like, "I am My Mother's Only Poem" I think this is a fitting gift for any mom. Here are some samples of what you can find between the covers. mourning doves perch in pairs never alone ~ your voice in my ear constant and new ******************** autumn ballroom frost painted bare feet sashay and slide expose my soul~ for you to know like your own hand
Read more

Mentors and Routines: It takes a tribe

Image
Even as I sit at my desk alone in the dawn I know that no one truly writes a novel by herself. At least not if she wants to hold onto a shred of sanity as she does so. Of course, aside from that paper muse I showed you yesterday, I have a little tribe to gain confidence from. First of all is Tapestries, my local writing group. We are a group of 6 women commited to writing and publishing our novels. Three of us have been meeting monthly for over ten years. Without these women I would have given up long ago. We help each other stay on task, brainstorm plot ideas and provide feedback as we each read portions of our novels. Sometimes mentors come from outside my writing group, like the help I've gotten from Martha Alderson who is better known as the Plot Whisperer. Her books and videos provide wonderful guidance. Though I don't typically write from an outline her books provide a bit of structure to my plot planning and her prompts and direction in terms of rituals and ro
Read more

A Bit of Writing Prompt Fantasy

Image
I don't typically write fantasy or surrealist fiction but several years ago I took a writing class and one of the daily prompts produced this little story. Not something I would have devised on my own, but apparently it was in my head someplace because it emerged easily onto the page. MAGIC POTION LOTION             Knee high by the Fourth of July. That’s how many strands of red licorice I had collected for my patriotic installation at the campus art gallery. Now I needed materials in blue and white and they had to come by the color naturally, I wasn’t allowed to paint anything and I only had two hours left to finish the piece in time. I ran down the hall of the dorm pounding on doors.             “Wake up! Get to the lounge! I need help!”             “What do you want now?”             It was five o’clock in the morning but my dorm mates were used to my ill-timed bursts of creative energy. They dragged themselves down to the lounge. I looked at the sleepy hung-o
Read more