This week’s random thought: Black Friday, Small Biz Sat, Cyber Mon, Taco Tues?

Last week, I mentioned the annual Monterey County Weekly’s 101-word story contest. This was the event that launched me into the world of fiction writing. Thanks a lot, M.C. Weekly 🥴. Yesterday was the deadline to submit entries, so I got busy asking people to look at five stories I thought might be competitive. You’re allowed to submit three. Last year, they came up with a requirement that stories had to include a word (or variation on the word). They repeated the rule this year, giving us the required word “light,” pointing out that they would accept variations such as lit, lightning, etc. I found four stories in my inventory that I liked. One had the word lit in it already, and I was able to tuck light or a derivative of it into the others. I also wrote a new story that really leaned into the whole concept of light versions of something. I ended up submitting that one, along with two others that seemed to get a lot of love from my friends who read the stories for me. Thanks, pals, for doing that for me.

I think contest results usually appear around the third week of December—definitely before Christmas. If results are in by my next post, you’ll hear about it. Otherwise, it’ll be in a post-Christmas edition. Stay tuned.

With all that said, here’s the Story of the Week. The prompt: Light.

                Wiggle Room

Angie thinks I’m a commitment-phobe—afraid to ever commit 100%. She’s wrong, but still, she’s my best friend (sorta).

Now she’s mad because we were meeting at two. “No. I said ‘two-ish.’” That fires her up.

“You can’t ish everything. You never go all in.”

“That’s partially true,” I say.

“Partially? What’s your favorite chocolate?”

“Semi-sweet.”

“Best movie?”

“Almost Famous.”

“Favorite beer?”

“Miller Lite.”

“Wow—you can’t even commit to the full spelling of ‘light.’ Everything you do is half-hearted—even your conversion to Judaism.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I think you like the sound of being Jew-ish.”

I grimace. “You’re right—mostly.”

NOVEL NEWS & NOTES…

Well… last time we spoke, I think I said I was very close to finishing up the outline for my next draft. Guess what? Mission accomplished. I got the outline together, including slashing a few scenes from the last draft that I really liked. A lot more will probably wind up on the cutting room floor before the damage is done. After that, I wrote a three-page summary of the story. That turned out to be an excellent exercise, because I found one or two scenes that needed to be put in a different order if I wanted to tell a story that did not involve time travel. I wrote the summary for two purposes. One, so it would give my editor an overview of the story before she reads the outline—or at least have the outline all make sense if she reads that first. Two, I had a suspicion that the process of putting all my bullet points into full sentences would reveal any sequence issues—which, as already mentioned, it did.

Besides those two things, I also gave the editor a list of all the new characters I added, with a brief explanation of how they’re all connected. We’re mostly talking about suspects. I added several, and I think this should add story depth and create more reader interest as we all try to figure out who the real bad guy is and who the red herrings and distractions might be. I may have overdone it in the suspect department, but if that’s the case, cutting is always easier than adding. We’ll just have to see what the all-knowing editor has to say. Not sure when that will be. I think I’ll reach out today just to make sure she got my material and to see if she can give me any idea regarding when I should expect to hear back from her. Once I get the blessing to go ahead, I’ll jump right into the fun stuff—the actual writing. I can’t wait.

Thanks for listening.

Scotty out

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