Becoming A Fiction Writer
One girl, one dream … and a whole lot of procrastination
August 18, 2008 by amanda

It seems that I have original ideas, at least occasionally

Remember a few weeks ago I wrote another short story for a Writers Weekly 24-hour contest? Well, results are still not in yet, but what I read on the Writers Weekly site today still cheered me up somewhat.

Angela Hoy of Writers Weekly wrote a post this week about the common themes that she found in the several hundred short story entries for this contest. Remember, every story has to be based on the given topic – that’s one of the ways they ensure you really do write it within the 24-hour time period – and apparently, this means that many writers end up writing pretty similar stories. Her post included a long list of themes or plots that were common across several or more stories, and the reason I’m cheered up is this: the themes from my story didn’t make this list at all. So if nothing else, it seems that my idea was somewhat original. Whether the idea is good or not is another story, but being original is certainly a positive thing from where I’m standing.

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August 18, 2008 by amanda

Unspectacular beginning to writer buddy system

So … yesterday was the first deadline in our writing buddy system. Both my buddy Katrina and I had spectacularly disorganised weeks last week with the odd drama and hiccup thrown in for good measure, and failed to meet our deadline yesterday. Instead, we ate cheesecake together. (Baked cheesecake, the best kind).

However, we are not giving up, and decided that our deadlines are there to help us make progress and the deadlines are structured to give us a little room for movement – so we gave ourselves a small extension. Technically, it is still Sunday in many parts of the world, notably across North and South America, and we’re going to be using that time zone instead for our deadline! Yes, we’re totally cheating, but it’s better than giving up entirely.

My goal for yesterday was to write the second chapter of my Bratislava novel. I have an outline for it and a couple of pages written, and I am fairly confident I know how the rest of it is going to sound. After I do a little paid writing this morning and take a good walk with a friend, I’ll be raring to go and polish it off this afternoon. I promise. I’ll report back here with a little edit to prove that I really do get it done.

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