Zen writing...

Read Ray Bradbury's "Zen in the Art of Writing" this week. Validation for my "seat of the pants" approach to writing. Trusting in my intuition to guide my writing. No censorship from the brain allowed, only words streaming out from my fingertips. Freedom to relax and let my fingers do the talking. Time enough to worry about cleaning up my words later. For now, writing the tale is my goal.

A short story a week

The challenge offered in my short story writing class is writing a story each week. This week the muse for the story is an article from the paper from which we create a character using a "character questionnaire." I chose to use an obituary posted in the local newspaper. After completing the questionnaire, I wrote a story about the person's life - fictional of course. What a great way to use a prompt - the character questionnaire - and then to let my imagination take off. See the writing riff page entry for a brief glimpse of my developing story.

Short story class week 2

This week I've written pieces for several writing projects. I managed to complete a short story! 1900 words, about loss and grief (who'd guessed grief as a theme!). I await critiques from my classmates and the instructor next week. I think the piece is slightly better than crap. Now I must begin my second short story - need to write a riff to get me started.

Short Story writing

Attended my first fall term writing class this week. Short stories - we will write a short story each week, critique other student's stories, and get feedback on our stories from the instructor. It will be a challenge to write a story each week. I have a few ideas based on scenes I've written over the summer. We did an exercise in class - a riff? - 20 minutes writing about a childhood experience. I will try to create my first short story from the writing exercise.

Writing short stories...

This term I am taking a short story writing class. I have written a number of pieces set in the mid nineteen sixties to mid nineteen seventies. I envision a collection of pieces about various aspects of the social movements that arose during the counter couture era. As a sociologist, I was deeply interested in social movement and the impact of these on cultural change. Lately I've tried to identify what remains today of these movements to change the culture. Short story fiction may be a way for me to write about the beginnings, and perhaps explore there impact, if any, on society today.