The Race

I’ll see you an opening line and raise you a story!  Bet you didn’t see this one coming.

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Timothy didn’t realize he was in serious trouble until the port engine sheared away from the wing and plummeted into the sea.  He watched in horror as the shattered stub of the port engine steam line spewed plumes of white cloud into the cold morning air.  He pulled hard on one of the steering lines, desperately trying to use the rudder to keep the racer on course with only one engine.

Writing Exercise- You choose

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a writing exercise on the blog.  Usually, I like to get some random words and set a timer, but this time I think we’ll change it up a little.

I’m looking for your ideas!  Specifically, I’m looking for a first sentence.  Toss out the first sentence to a story (nothing else) and I’ll see what I can make of it.

Webinar Review

As I promised last week, here is a review of the webinar I attended last Wednesday.

Webinar Details:

Agent Reads the Slushpile- 05/02/2012, 8:00- 10:00m EST

Cost $68

Summary: Literary Agent Kristin Nelson will read the “slush pile”* and give honest feedback as to why she would or would not read on, based on the sample pages in front of her.   The “slush pile” in this case comes from the webinar attendees, who each submit the first two pages of their novels.

The short version: This is a good webinar.  I learned a lot in two hours and the price is comparable to other writing workshops of similar length.

The long version follows below.

And fun was not had by all

Well, I seem to have created a story that almost no one understands.  Now I know how William Faulkner felt… without the benefit of actually being a literary genius.

I will take another crack at ’1 minute, 2 seconds’.  I think I’ve got another way to tell this story that could be much more comprehensible.  Time will tell.

1 minute, 2 seconds

New story!  It’s another foray into the fantastic realism genre.  The inspiration for the story was the word Palimpsest.  I like using random ‘starter words’ to get me thinking in new ways, but sometimes you only need one.  Enjoy.

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A car sped past and the wind it shoved aside bumped into Scott before stumbling on.  The smell of exhaust and hot pavement was strong at this intersection and he held his brother’s arm tightly, eyes squeezed shut to minimize his disorientation.  Under the thin soles of his shoes he could feel the break in the pavement where the sidewalk touched the curb.

Interesting Webinar

I just signed up for a very interesting webinar.

Summary:

Agent Reads The Slush Pile

Literary Agent Kristin Nelson will read the “slush pile”* and give honest feedback as to why she would or would not read on, based on the sample pages in front of her.   The “slush pile” in this case comes from the webinar attendees, who each submit the first two pages of their novels.

It looks like a great chance to get inside an agent’s head and see what they’re looking for and how to stand out.  Obviously, I don’t have a novel written yet, so I’ll submit the first pages of Absalom.  I’ll report back next week on the value of the experience.

*Slush pile refers to the work submitted to agents or publishers that they have yet to go through and make a decision on. Ah, jargon.

Sad Day

Behold a new story!  This one was a stretch assignment for me, in several ways.  It’s definitely not a case of writing what you know.  I believe the genre could be described as fantastic realism, which is writing that basically takes place in the real world, but with a few fantastical differences.  Like the weather, for example.

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Allison sat at the stoplight, watching the shimmering beads of sad hit her windshield and roll slowly down to the hood.  She’d been stopped long enough for a large glop of it to collect around the wipers and she flicked them on to toss it into the street.  The sad clung to itself, forming a large shifting oblong as it moved through the air, until it landed with a slippery thud on the street and began rolling towards the gutter. Allison watched it for a moment and shivered.  She reached down and turned up the heat to chase away the chill and the radio to drown out the steady thumping on the roof.

On the radio an overly cheery anchor was just wrapping up the local news.

A milestone!

I have received my first rejection letter!  It’s an important milestone.  Now to submit the story to option #2. It’ll be going out in Monday’s mail.  (They don’t accept electronic submissions; how weird is that?)

In other news, I’ve just finished a draft for another story. [Finally.] That should be up before the end of the weekend.

The man in the arena

As I was flipping through my latest copy of Writer’s Digest I saw an ad for their writing competition.

It’s a short story competition with six categories: crime, horror, romance, sci- fi, thriller, and young adult.  You can submit in each category and they’ll be accepting submissions from June to September.

Naturally, I thought of the stories I have here.  I have drafts for sci-fi and horror already done, and tweaking a story into a young adult tale would be an easy fix. Contest here I come!

It occurred to me, however, that if I really wanted to learn about the industry and different genres, the way to do it would be to submit a story in every genre.

So that’s what I’ll do.  Romance should be… especially educational.

The last bookstore

I went to my favorite bookstore yesterday.

It is everything a modern store shouldn’t be.  Its cramped confines are a fire hazard, and it’s one stumble away from a hellacious personal injury lawsuit.  If you go in looking for a particular book, you have to ask one of the two shopkeepers or you’ll never find it.  The verbs commonly used to describe its organizational system are not the usual ‘file’ or ‘categorize’, but rather verbs more commonly associated with botany and geology. ‘Accrete’, ‘stratify’ and ‘deposit’, for example.  Finally, there are precisely zero chairs in the entire store and you definitely can’t get a cup of coffee there.

It is also, however, the last bookstore standing.  According to the proprietor, no fewer than nine bookstores have closed in town, but not them.

Part of the reason is no doubt contained in the conversation I’ll retell below.

I went in looking for East of Eden.  I found a Steinbeck set, but it would have set me back $45.

“Do you have another copy of East of Eden?” I asked.

“No,” the proprietor said, “But I can break that set for you.  They’re just as easy to sell alone.”

“That’s the beauty of Steinbeck,” I said. “I’d like to get them all but I really can’t spend $45 today.”

He cut open the cellophane around the set and removed East of Eden. As he handed it to me, he said, “You’ll regret it later.”

I smiled. “Probably.”

I may well go back and buy the rest, if they haven’t sold already.