Kicking your Muse in the $^&#@

Yesss!! My online writing workshop has started our second short story challenge of the year: four weeks, eight five-word lists (2 per week), and as many stories as you can get your Muse to spew forth. SSIAW pieces are rough by definition, since you only have a week (or less) to crank them out, but that's why they're fun: you can leave plot holes and loose ends for the moment unaddressed, and just focus on getting SOMETHING on paper that has a beginning, middle and end. The last one (we do them in March and September) was a big part of why I started this blog -- to encourage myself in my writing. I suppose I can say it was a success since I did get a story in for that one (my first-ever SSIAW sub!), but I'm hoping for better things from myself this time around. So far it's shaping up well: got one in for the first week and am working on something for the second week.

On top of that, I wrote five flash pieces (also known, in the world of fanfic, for some reason that I have yet to identify, as "drabbles") for nursedarry's hp_uk_meetup that I'm quite chuffed about. Four of them came out exactly the way I wanted them, which almost never happens -- my Muse, she is a tricksy beast! She got me good on the last one, though, which twisted itself into something quite a bit darker than I had planned.

Postscript: Aha! drabble