New Challenges

It's always good to set yourself new challenges.
Generally, I get thoroughly enthused and start a good five or so at a time. This week, it's my new Word Count Per Week challenge, my Exercise Everyday challenge (does walking to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet count?), my Keep on Top of the Washing Up challenge (cheating by buying a dishwasher ha ha), my Blog More Often challenge (working well, thank you) and my Write Something Different challenge.

I have found that blogging has stretched me in a slightly different direction; it is snappy and cheerful and thoroughly unlike my novel writing and poetry. I find this trains my brain in the same way that swimming and resistance work helps with running. Even if I am just writing short snippets, in the words of the Great Vileness Tesco, Every Little Helps.

So my Write Something Different challenge is all about... writing something different. I started writing poetry as a moody teenager but, surprisingly, I was quite good at it. Until a few years ago I couldn't imaging writing imaginative prose. I had written articles for school, university and work publications but one day I sat myself down and wrote a thousand words of a novel. They weren't very good and 900 were swiftly axed, but at least the process had begun.

I have joined a forum on WriteWords (mentioned in my last post) that to me seems like a boot camp for short stories.

Short stories terrify me. I don't know how to write them. This forum kindly nudges you for weekly attempts around a theme of less than, say, 600 words. 600 words! That's nothing! I write paragraphs of fewer words than that.

Which is why I joined. 600 words or fewer on the theme 'the artist' by Sunday.
Left, Riiiight! Left, Riiiight! Go! Go! Go!



Thanks to Let'sGoDigital for the photo of Mount Everest.