Writing Report February 24, 2017

Wow, it’s been quite a while since my last writing report.

I’ve been writing.

I just haven’t been reporting.

Let’s start with good news: I have a micro-fiction (i.e. under 100 words) piece coming out soon in Spirit’s Tincture Journal #3. I have to stay mum on the story since it’s (a) micro-fiction and (b) the title itself gives away about half the idea.

But I’ll let you know when it’s in print and online.

More good news: After a lengthy hiatus, the regular writers’ group I participate in has resumed meeting. It’s good to get together and hang out and compare notes and talk shop but with a certain sense of…well, not exactly privacy but certainly not having to worry about drive by commenters coming in and hijacking a thread (and God knows I am guilty of that sin!).

I had written a one act play for a contest last year but missed the entry deadline so I planned to submit it this year, only this year the contest is on hold so I’ve turned it into a short story…

…and hate it.

The story works as a play because there’s a certain amount of theatricality to it that audiences will forgive in their suspension of disbelief (i.e., condensing a lot of stuff that in real life would occur over hours or days into a twenty to thirty minute long piece), but it trying to re-do it as a short story I ended up with a great big lump that refuses to come to life.

I read the first part to the group and asked for feedback and received a lot of good insight.

When you remove your ego from the equation, you can be shown what you are blind to because you are too close to the material. The group showed me where the story works as a play -- and what has to be jettisoned / changed / added to make it work as a short story. I’m going to take a swing at re-writing it this weekend.

My “World War Two era Lord Of The Flies with Catholic school girls” YA novel will be hitting Amazon within a month or so. I have an excellent new artist working on a cover and when she does this one we’ll get her to work on the next three muy pronto.

We'll sneak some peeks at the cover next time.

I’ve mentioned this story several times in the past but now that The Most Dangerous Man In The World is finally off my plate I hope to speed up my release dates.

The second female barbarian story is awaiting its turn in the re-writing bin, then I want to start on the big comic (and in comedy, not graphic) novel I’ve been planning for a couple of years.

And of course, various short stories and poems and fictoids are sure to pop up now and then in the upcoming year, so God willin’ ‘n’ th’ crick don’t rise we should see quite a bit of material from yrs truly in the next ten months.

on writing roald dahl