Random thought: Next week I’ll be in a TSA line, where TSA stands for, “This Sucks Alot”
I know. “A lot” is two words but I had to take a bit of creative license to make the joke work. That’s what us writers do, right? I’m actually hoping the joke doesn’t even apply by next week. I’ll know for sure when I fly out of Seattle en route to Italy. If I don’t put out another blog in two weeks, look for me in an endless line at SeaTac.
Regarding the inspiration for this week’s 101-word story, a prompt sent in by a woman named Susan who said she lives in “the dunes.” I’m going to assume she’s talking about some exotic desert location, and she somehow stumbled onto my blog and she hired a camel to take her to the nearest internet cafe where she emailed me. Sounds reasonable, right?
BREAKING NEWS…. (This is my ode to CNN’s favorite two words)
Right before we went to press, I decided to include bonus content. Kind of a “Choose your own adventure” thing. My talented team of advance readers agreed that the early draft of my story (how can I put this politely?), Oh yeah, it sucked. I reworked it, came up with something I liked, and then reworked it yet again, with another ending. I’m releasing both of these into the wild. Maybe you’ll like the first. Maybe you’ll like the second. Maybe neither was worth your time. The point is, I love hearing from all of you, so feel free to vote early and often.
Here’s the story. Well … stories.
Oxygen
After losing his job, Dave left California for the Midwest.
Once he settled in, his neighbor, Jimmy, introduced Dave to the neighborhood.
“This town’s amazing,” Jimmy said. “We got ten flavors of ice cream. Beat that, California!”
“And we got In-N-Out,” a neighbor said.
Dave smiled. “Great burgers.”
“That’s funny. It’s a carwash. Just lower the windows while you drive through and it gets clean— in and out!”
“Sounds like a drowning hazard,” Dave said. “Where is it?”
“By the condemned nuclear reactor,” Jimmy said. When he pointed, his shirt sleeve crept up, revealing his forearm gills.
When we last spoke, I talked about fearing I will need to cut a lot of scenes from my current draft. As of right now, I haven’t actually taken steps to do that, but as I look at the three pages of story beats, I was still planning to include in this draft, I need to hit the pause button. I’ve already blown past the page count of the previous iteration. If I blindly obey the current outline, I’ll have something so unwieldy, the editing process may traumatize me for life.
Instead, I think I need to look at many of these beats and honestly ask myself the question: Which of these beats can I leave in the dust? There are probably LOTS that will never be missed, and if there are some I truly love that can be given a new life in the next book, all the better.
Having too much material isn’t the worst thing in the world. If I were delusional, I’d call it an embarrassment of riches, but in reality, what it really means is that I have a good problem. Better to have too much and have to cut, than to have too little and have to write more.
Sorry you had to see the sausage being made, but just knowing you’re out there forced me to make the public commitment. Tomorrow I come up with a new outline for the rest of the book. Let the scenes fall where they may, and may the best ones win.
Scotty out
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