This week’s random thought: I plan to live forever. So far, so good.

Our 101-word story comes to us from a prompt I got back in 2023. Remember way back when? We were all so innocent, weren’t we? I admit it—I had no idea what a Labubu was. Fun fact: Still don’t. But… I digress. I meant to thank Edward H. for the generous prompt donation that led to the Story of the Week. Here it is.

Wait—one more thing. The Monterey County Weekly’s 101-word story contest is now accepting submissions. I’m a perennial contestant who is starting to feel like Susan Lucci—and by that I mean I feel like an aging soap opera star. Still, I keep coming back for more, and if you want to give it a try, get yourself a copy of the paper or go to their website https://www.montereycountynow.com/ and check out the deets.

       Camping Was Never This Exciting

When they booked a one-star motel for the family vacation, the Smiths didn’t know that The All-Nighter Lodge was owned by meth dealers. In hindsight, had they read the Yelp reviews (“Bring nose plugs—they cook lots of dope”), camping might’ve been smarter.

Upon arrival, the Smiths entered the “lobby” (a bullet-ridden storage shed). “Wazzup?” the clerk smiled, flashing both teeth.

As they politely looked away, three heavily-armed bikers stormed in, demanding “the stuff.”

The clerk handed over the meth (and complimentary, barely-used water bottles). Later, after the cops departed, the slightly-rattled Smiths went home with “our best vacation story ever!”

Prompt: Untimely vacations

NOVEL NEWS & NOTES…

The fun stuff in writing my latest draft is just around the corner. I can feel it. I always equate the heavy outlining part with my mom making me eat my vegetables before I could dive into the dessert. Put in the work (the outlining) and then get the reward (the actual watching the story come to life, hearing what the characters say, and being surprised by the fun gems that I couldn’t envision when I was broadly sketching things out.

Once I finish this outline (and I’m definitely getting close), I’ll go back and read a very long document I put together that is a combination of notes from my editor, weird ideas I came up with but didn’t know if I wanted to include them, and more details I knew I wanted to add to this draft. After I feel like I have it all in the right order, I will need to make some very tough decisions about what scenes to cut. This will no doubt involve some storylines that have to go. I may even kill off a character or two. Casualties of war. As writers, we’re often reminded about the need to “kill our darlings,” writing we’ve fallen in love with that ultimately doesn’t serve the story. Being the eternal optimist (see note above re: living forever), my computer has a morgue where all my darlings have been frozen in the hopes of reviving them for a later project. Change the names and find a new world where the scene can live again. Hey, what can I say—I’m a recycler.

Thanks for listening.

Scotty out

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