October Challenge Results

I realized I never reported back on my October challenge. I wrote almost every day, and that resulted in finishing a short story and my novella.

I also spoke with the editor about the original short story I submitted to her. I confessed that it had been so long since I’d worked on it that it was feeling lifeless to me. So she’s considering the new short story in its place.

Here are the openers for both of the projects.

Casa Soledad (novella)

“This house was in the middle of a reno before it was put on the market,” Lauren said, double-checking the street address on her navigation system. The two of them were driving around a huge lot—almost two acres, according to the sales flyer. A tall stucco fence, crumbling and exposing stone in some places, blocked the view of the house, which was almost dead center on the property according to the map on the flyer. This was a house Marcy had insisted on seeing. It hadn’t been on the list her mother had put together for her.

the end; the beginning (short story)

“My face felt raw, scratched. I struggled to open my eyes. I propped myself up on my forearms. Waves broke against the shore, sucked back, withdrew into the ocean’s depth, and returned full force. I sat up. I was wearing a skirt I hadn’t seen (or fit into) since college. My shirt—soft, faded, and transparently thin in some places—was an old favorite too. Where had they come from? Stranger still, where was I? I didn’t live near a beach. At least, I didn’t think so.”

Make Good Art

 

 

"You have no idea what you're doing. This is great. ... If you don't know what's impossible, it's easier to do."

"If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that. That's much harder than it sounds, and sometimes in the end so much easier than you might imagine."

"I tended to do anything as long as it felt like an adventure, and to stop when it felt like work, which meant that life did not feel like work."

"Nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn't wind up getting the money either."

"If you make mistakes, it means you're out there doing something."

"When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art."

"The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself, that is the moment you may be starting to get it right."

"The old rules are crumbling, and nobody knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules."

"So be wise, because the world needs more wisdom. And if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise and then just behave like they would."

"Make interesting mistakes. Break rules. Make the world more interesting for your being here."

 

October Challenge

October is going to be an incredibly busy month, both at work and at home. So of course I want to set a challenge for myself to work on my writing and creativity in general. There's a reason I'm doing this. It's easy for me to get caught up in the grind, focusing on all the items on my to-do list, and forget the reasons I do what I do. It's also easy to take what I love for granted when I get in this mode. So this creativity challenge is a way for me to connect with writing, making things (whatever they may be), and living a creative life.

So this month I will try to do something that feeds that creative impulse every day. It might be taking a picture, visiting a museum, writing, cooking, whatever seems like a good idea.

To start me off, I will write a little about my fiction works in progress. If I can sneak in some time over the month, I'll work on these stories.

DISOBEDIENCE

This is a short story about a teenage girl and her mother who have run away from an abusive father/husband. They flee to South Texas and they have to decide what to do when the father finds them and asks them to come home.

Status: I submitted this to a journal several months ago, and the editors have asked for a revision. I'm taking a look at it, and I have a call scheduled with the editor at the end of the month to discuss it. Amount of revision is currently unknown. Depending on our conversation, I will decide whether or not to rewrite and to what degree.

THE END; THE BEGINNING

A strange story about the afterlife, though it's no afterlife I've ever heard of or read about. My main character is an atheist who finds herself frustrated by the environment she finds herself in. She doesn't believe in God, but her story has not ended with her death so she has to reconsider what she believes. 

Status: I've done a few drafts. I've gotten some feedback from readers and need to incorporate the changes. My guess is that this would take an afternoon or less to get to the next draft. Not a ton of work that needs to happen on this one, just need to make the time. 

DREAM HOUSE

This is a ghost/haunted house story set in San Antonio. I say story, but it's really a novelette. It's about 17,000 words.

Status:  This is currently the project I'm most excited about, but it's a little lower in the queue due to the amount of revision that needs to happen. I let Nate, my mom, and my mother-in-law read it. Now I know what's confusing, what readers are likely to have questions about, and have figured out a couple of scenes I need to add.

Here's hoping this month is a productive one!

 

Utopia, Texas

We took a little time off this past week to relax and spend time together as a family. We had talked about going somewhere cooler—Seattle or Colorado, maybe—but in the end I didn’t feel like getting on a plane with Liam yet. He’s at a difficult age for traveling in confined spaces. He’s old enough to be mobile and vocal and loud, but not yet old enough to understand that he has to stay put for a flight. Also he’s not old enough to be distracted by movies or books. He probably would have been okay, but in the end we decided to keep things easy and headed down to Utopia, Texas, about a three-hour drive south of Austin.

We stayed at Utopia on the River and it was pretty ideal for small children. We had a very short walk down to the river, where we explored rocks and fallen trees and water. Zoe loved to “go on adventures,” and Liam enjoyed throwing rocks into the river. For hours. We also had access to the pool and hot tub, and we alternated between the river and the pool almost every day.

There was a lot of “wildlife”—some domesticated and some wild—that the kids enjoyed seeing. Tons of hummingbirds, a flock of turkeys, horses, deer, Monarch butterflies (I think they’re about to start migrating south), and bats. The kids loved watching the hummingbirds and deer eat right outside our door.

We also took a day trip to Garner State Park. We started off the morning with a hike and probably chose a trail that was too ambitious for Liam. Many parts of the Crystal Cave trail were steep and challenging for us, and we had to carry Liam at the same time. We ran into two different families with older kids who said the trail was too much for them, so next time we’ll probably pick one of the easier ones. At least until Liam is a little surer on his feet. (It was challenging for Zoe, but she loved it.) We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the Frio River, and we had a hard time pulling Zoe away.

One night we headed to the Frio Bat Flight where you can see the second-largest bat colony in the world. It was strangely calming to hear their wings and chirps coming out of the cave in waves. Similar to waves on the ocean (as strange as that might sound).

 

We had some debate about whether we stayed one day too long. But I’m off the opinion that you should get a little bit bored on your vacation. That means you’ve truly had time to relax and unwind.

And now, back to the real world.