Tuesday 27 March 2012

Fic-100 prompts

I finished my 30 song prompt-inspired stories a few weeks ago now and I was mooching around the web looking for inspiration when I came across this on a fanfiction website.

Write one hundred fanfics centered around this fandom you’ve chose. You can use old stuff that you’ve written before, or new stuff. Fictions, drabbles, poems, scripts. Anything is game as long as it is set in your fandom. You don't have to post them all at once. You can do one at a time, or a couple, or whatever you want.

And the catch: each of the fics must fit into one of the following prompts.
001. Beginnings. 814 words, April 23
002. Middles.
003. Ends.
004. Insides.
005. Outsides.
006. Hours.
007. Days.
008. Weeks.
009. Months.
010. Years.
011. Red.
012. Orange. 513 words, April 24
013. Yellow.
014. Green.
015. Blue.
016. Purple.
017. Brown.
018. Black.
019. White.
020. Colourless.
021. Friends.
022. Enemies.
023. Lovers.
024. Family.
025. Strangers.
026. Teammates.
027. Parents.
028. Children.
029. Birth.
030. Death.
031. Sunrise.
032. Sunset.
033. Too Much.
034. Not Enough.
035. Sixth Sense.
036. Smell.
037. Sound.
038. Touch.
039. Taste.
040. Sight.
041. Shapes.
042. Triangle.
043. Square.
044. Circle.
045. Moon.
046. Star.
047. Heart.
048. Diamond.
049. Club.
050. Spade.
051. Water.
052. Fire.
053. Earth.
054. Air.
055. Spirit.
056. Breakfast.
057. Lunch.
058. Dinner.
059. Food.
060. Drink.
061. Winter.
062. Spring.
063. Summer.
064. Fall.
065. Passing.
066. Rain.
067. Snow.
068. Lightening.
069. Thunder.
070. Storm.
071. Broken.
072. Fixed.
073. Light.
074. Dark.
075. Shade.
076. Who?
077. What?
078. Where?
079. When?
080. Why?
081. How?
082. If.
083. And.
084. He.
085. She.
086. Choices.
087. Life.
088. School.
089. Work.
090. Home.
091. Birthday.
092. Christmas.
093. Thanksgiving.
094. Independence.
095. New Year.
096. Writer‘s Choice.
097. Writer‘s Choice.
098. Writer‘s Choice.
099. Writer‘s Choice.
100. Writer‘s Choice.
I don't tend to write fanfic, but I'm going to try to work through all of these over the next few months.

Thursday 22 March 2012

March Madness - WriYe

The idea of March Madness is to catch up on all the challenges on the WriYe boards from the first three months of the year. It's also a good way to set yourself deadlines and get a lot of writing done, so I've set myself an insane amount of targets!

March Madness - 20 - 31 March 2012

-- 01,664 / 01,500 - January FMM - 24 hours
-- 01,351 / 01,000 - February FMM - 24 hours
-- 00,000 / 01,500 - March FMM - 24 hours
-- 00,000 / 02,500 - January 5K Weekend - 48 hours
-- 00,000 / 02,500 - February 5K Weekend - 48 hours
-- 00,000 / 05,000 - MLK WriDay - 24 hours
-- 05,000 / 10,000 - Valentine's WriDay - 24 hours
-- 00,000 / 10,000 - Leap WriDay - 24 hours
-- 00,000 / 05,000 - St Patty's WriDay - 24 hours
-- 00,000 / 02,000 - January Hint Fic
-- 00,000 / 01,000 - February Hint Fic
-- 00,000 / 02,000 - Write-A-Thon Goal #1 - hit 2k then set another goal and keep going!
-- 00,000 / 05,000 - KWIF - romance
-- 00,000 / 10,000 - Daylight Savings - 10k in 5 hours

January hint fic prompt - Boring Sermon
When the hymnal fell he lost his place and, fumbling, ended with a quick Amen.

February hint fic prompt - Through Tiny Windows
When they opened the cadaver, they found a house. A couple argued inside. There was rhythm to their words, like the beating of a heart.

Monday 19 March 2012

Procrastination

I've managed to procrastinate over writing this blog post for a good week, so I'd better get on with it now...

I'm an expert at procrastination. If there was an Olympic event I'd miss it because I'd find something else I really needed to do before turning up. The usual suspects - YouTube and checking my mail - usually find a way to interfere when I'm on my computer, and when I'm not, somehow I always find some housework that has to be done that second.

When I give myself a deadline I find it easier to not procrastinate, but I can still get sidetracked.

The only time I find myself not distracted is it I've got an idea that absolutely must be written down - and they usually come when I'm doing something else. Like driving. It's amazing how many notes I've got on my phone voice recorder with little ideas for stories!

But I digress...

So yes, I procrastinate a lot, even when I'm trying to be focussed. I'm not sure what my best solution is, aside from sticking me in a room with a kettle, tea bags, milk and no internet connection!

(Oh, and I procrastinate by writing blog posts too....)

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Confessions!

I’m going to invite the people of the WriYe blogging circle to make a confession about their writing
Hmmm, confessions.... I'm not sure where to start. I could confess that I spend time at work jotting down ideas I've had for stories, but it's not especially scandalous, is it? After all, you're supposed to catch ideas on paper (or screen) when you get them, aren't you?

So my confession is - I often start a story with absolutely no idea where it's heading, but I always seem to know how long the finished story will be.

Last April I decided to write an April Fools novel and I picked something I'd never tried before - a romance. To make things slighty easier for myself I based it on a song, so I had certain lines of the song that I knew would relate to certain instances in the story. But aside from knowing I was going to write a story based on a song, I really had no idea what I was doing. I had no characters, no setting (except that it was going to be on a ship - the song - and the eventual finished story - was called Down With The Ship), and no real idea of a storyline.

But as I was thinking about the story and the ship, the two main characters started to create themselves in the situation. I wrote a couple of scenes which would take place between the two of them and as I did, the world they lived in started to take more shape. Then I could move on to scenes involving more people and more places.

Eventually I knew my characters and setting well enough that I could start to pull the scenes together into a more cohesive story, and eventually I did finish the story.

That's not quite typical for me - usually I start with a character in a situation rather than a song, but it's quite often how I end up piecing my stories together.

Will that do for a confession?

• The song was Down With The Ship by Naomi King, and it is fantastic!

Monday 5 March 2012

Tumbling about the web...

I've decided to branch out and try out a Tumblr to see if I like it and what it's all about. At the moment I'm keeping it for specific projects, with this one for more general things. We'll see how it goes!