Writing and friends

Helllllloooo!

Do you know what I've been doing lately?

Writing. (If you've seen it, read it in the voice of that Patrick Stewart skit where he talks about acting.)

I have been! I've been writing a lot, so many different stories, and I haven't blogged at all. It saps my writing mojo, y'know. (I've also done other things - I went to Japan for a month, and left Australia not speaking a word of Japanese! I moved house! I helped my boyfriend's parents buy a flat! I've also started on anti-anxiety meds that crushed my creativity for a few months there too, but it's much better now.)

My goal for 2013 was to get a story finished and e-published. As always with deadlines, I'm not anywhere near close. BUT. I have made progress. (Some of it is backwards but ultimately it is good.)

Through Reddit, I recently found a fabulous Beta/writing partner AND an awesome writing/critique community called Scribophile. I also posted the first part of my latest and favourite story up for critique on Reddit. Between beta-ing for my partner,  beta-ing and critiquing on Scribophile, and reading the comments on my Reddit thread, I've decided that honestly NOTHING I have written so far is publishable to real standards. If I release something, I want to be proud of it - and thinking "I'm just gonna bang something out and get it finished and it will BE OUT THERE IN THE WORLD" is not really a great mindset to be in. I think I'll still stick with my same story, but the 10K words I've got so far will probably be scrapped. The 10K words of outlining should still be okay though! I just need to speed the story up a bit and add a little more personality. I think that will help.

Anyway. Now I'm on Scribophile I'm basically just thinking about writing all of the time (especially at work, which is DANGEROUS.) I've joined a few groups and one of them posted a cute prompt that I really enjoyed. Here's something I wrote up in 5 minutes.

The exercise here is to add descriptive details to this small exchange to color it with the actions and emotions of the characters involved, and to try to paint a more vivid picture of what's going on between them. Are they in love? Are they antagonists? What the hell is in the box??? Be creative.

She handed  him a box with a bow. A present. She'd given him a gift and he had nothing for her.

"Open it," she said.

He did. "It's... Thank you."

Aunt Nancy’s face was the picture of glee under her paper hat. She handed him a box – lovingly wrapped in last year’s re-used wrapping with little surfing Santas on it. Felix tried his best to look appreciative.Great work, buddy. Little wrinkled Aunt Nancy, the sweet old dear. She’s on her pension and all – she’s given you a gift, and you’ve got nothing for her.

“Oh, you didn’t… you didn’t have to,” he managed to stutter quietly, his fingers already working at untangling the wonky bow.

His mother’s eyes bored into him as if to say ‘You better be more grateful than that.’

Felix cleared his throat and broke through the ribbon to the sticky tape. “Wow, you’ve wrapped this really good,” he joked, and stretched what he hoped was an excited grin across his cheeks. Rosie rolled her eyes and fiddled with her ring. At least this Christmas, the first time he’d had the guts to introduce her to the family, hadn’t been too embarrassing so far.

The peeled bits of sticky tape were finally arranged neatly along the edge of the old coffee table, and Felix pulled open the paper with a flourish. The colourful printed packaging winked up at him.

“Oh wow! A lawn sprinkler…” We live in an apartment… “Thanks Aunt Nancy--“ he ducked across to kiss her on the cheek, but she laughed and hushed him, tapped the box with her gnarled old hands.

"Open it," she said, and winked.

He unfolded the end flap, tipped up the box, and a piece of folded fabric slid onto his lap.

Rosie grabbed the package from his lap, held up the pair of what was now revealed to be shorts by the elastic waistband. “Oh… my goodness.” She blushed furiously.

Aunt Nancy cackled and slapped her knee, and his mother nearly spat out her mimosa.

Felix grabbed the pants from his fiancée. They were shorts – boxer shorts, a fetching tone of grey with an elephant’s face printed on and –oh, Lord – a carefully designed hole right in front, a special place to show off your own trunk.

He had never seen anything so terrible.

His mother nudged him out of shocked silence. "It's... Thank you," Felix managed.

“You know,” Rosie said brightly, “in Thailand, it’s good luck when an elephant’s trunk is raised.”

Aunt Nancy and his mother burst into laughter.

Felix crumpled the shorts into a ball, placed them neatly on his fiancée’s lap and leaned in to kiss her forehead. Rosie’s cheeky green eyes sparkled up at him. Oh, yes, Felix thought happily. She was definitely a keeper.