The stuffies and Seth’s Curio

I am struggling with the protective, plastic sleeve wrapped around the Glucocorticoid spray. My wife says this will help me with the stuffies. It was just over a month ago, that I was getting over walking pneumonia. It started out just like this – head filled to the point of explosion. I resisted taking anything for it early on. You know, mind over matter. Only, the matter won that time. It took a round of antibiotics to get it all cleared up. I have the decongestant and the steroid here ready to go, in hopes that it will prevent this junk from settling into my chest again.

I have also struggled with the first few weeks of the Bradbury Challenge. Probably not unexpected. I don’t have a problem with coming up with new story ideas. Lately, I have a problem finishing them. The ideas come at me, each one with its characters screaming to be alive. They are born in a small fictional shop I created in the town of Rome, GA. Seth’s Curio is a happen’n place for weird curiosity items. I can see the store front. It isn’t at all creepy, quaint in fact. Manning the place is a round little man that likes to nap behind the counter. The front of the store is filled with knock-off items that were probably created in some giant press in Malaysia or some other cheap labor country. The back of the store is where the good stuff waits for buyers: One of a kind, Japanese puzzle boxes, carvings of the three wise apes, a gilded horn of the greater Kudu, ceremonial masks, and plenty of other nifty items. Each of these items plays a part in the whole of the story for Seth’s Curio. I hope that it will be a collection of short stories that will blend the weird with the mystic. I just need to wrap those babies up.

I hope that this cold wears off quickly. It is hard to keep the momentum up and fight it off. I would love to hear about your struggles completing a collection of writing. Leave a comment below and chime in.

Bradbury Challenge

I have awesome friends. That is just something that I would like to put out there. This weekend I met with a couple of my writer buddies and had a nice conversation, not just about writing. We chat about all sorts of things. This is something that I would like to continue. Recently, I have been ramping up my writing time, setting goals, and missing goals. In my previous job, I came to feel comfortable with deadlines. I didn’t always meet them. The difference between missing them then and missing them now is that I don’t have anyone to hold me accountable for missed deadlines. Well, that all changes in September.

We are getting together and committing to a slightly modified version of the Ray Bradbury challenge. If you don’t know about the challenge, it is one of two that Mr. Bradbury suggested for writers. One is to write a short story, poem, or essay every night for 1,000 nights. This might be possible for a writer of Bradbury or King prolificacy. Not something that I could pull off. Way too many things in life that will absolutely prevent me from reaching that lofty goal. The other challenge is to write a short story every week for 52 weeks. We are taking the second and modifying it to the following:

Write a short story, poem, flash fiction, or chapter in your current work in progress every week with a minimum of 250 words.

We start in September. I am really looking forward to the deadlines and the accountability.

Let’s do this.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Mr. Bradbury.

By photo by Alan Light, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1566877

 

The Writers Forum (Rome, GA)

Saturday, April 9, 2016
9:00 am – 4:00 pm

The Writers Forum hosted by the Rome Area Writers is an opportunity to learn from the award winning Victoria Wilcox, the author of the historical fiction trilogy Southern Son, The Saga of Doc Holiday. She will be discussing the process of getting your manuscript published and building your author platform. Novelist Janie Dempsey Watts will walk us through her exciting adventure of telling the story in your writing.

The venue will be at the WinShape Wilderness on the campus of Berry College in Rome, GA. Check your schedule and join us for the event.

I can’t wait to see you there.

2015, I mean 2016

This will be my first post for the new year. DUH!

I have been writing a few short length stories, micro, flash, and the short story or two while tearing down and rebuilding the current novel. All of these are less than 5k words. Some as low as 100 words. I do like to write this type of fiction. Sometimes, the idea starts as a simple vignette and blooms into a full story arc. It is like watching a plant grow in time-lapse photography-quick and to the point, with all of the beauty. I hope to have a few of these published. Finding the market for my stories is harder than writing them at times.

The list below are a few posts from bloggers/authors that I think you should take a look at this week.

Hannah Heath : 10 Reasons Why Writers Aren’t the Weird Ones
http://hannahheath-writer.blogspot.com/2016/01/10-reasons-why-writers-arent-weird-ones.html
Not sure if I agree with number #2. I think I have seen quite a few folks walking around in their PJ’s. Maybe it is more normal than it is conventional.

Jess Alter : Novel Update: Man and Brother
http://indieimprint.com/alteredstates/2016/01/novel-update-man-and-brother/
If you haven’t read ”Til Undeath Do Us Part,’ you should. <- That’s a period.

John P. Schultz: Quotes and Daily Notes
http://johnschulzauthor.com/author/johntheplantman/
John writes an uplifting post almost every day of the year. The are quick and true. Check out his books ‘Requiem for a Redneck’, ‘Redemption for a Redneck,’ and he has ‘Sweet Drives on Chemo Days’ a cancer survivorship autobiography.

Have a great new year.