River of Stones - Jan 26th

After the squeeze of rush hour on the subway
I walk slowly home through the park
my soul unfurling.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your prompt isn’t cold today!

Question: I’ve finished 2 weeks of taking a prompt every day and writing for 30 minutes, non-stop, and ending with a story of about 700 to 800 words. Not a real big accomplishment, except for me. I’ve never been able to do that before and I’m going to continue. Also,I will be starting a regular short story that I've been thinking about. Is there a point that I should look at taking a class? I was looking at a few online courses, possibly 2 or 3 months from now. Have you ever taken courses in writing?

Mario

January 26, 2011 at 11:17 PM
firstlinefiction said...

That is fabulous Mario!! Congratulations - you've been working hard. And it is a big accomplishment! I hope you have been enjoying it. Start your short story when you feel you will burst if you don't let the words out -that is my signal to begin. As for writing courses, I've never taken one. I tell people to do what feels right for them. But the only way to learn how to write - is to write. No shortcuts, I'm afraid.


~ Lori

January 27, 2011 at 9:35 AM
Anonymous said...

Thanks for the encouragement.

My only problem is that I wished I understood the process more. For instance, this morning I picked your prompt about Trudie clutching a piece of paper. I changed the name to Jack and had him drive to the place, using a GPS, looking for his birth mother. She had died a week earlier. The landlord had him look through the stuff in her apartment so that he could throw it all out. He found a box containing letters returned back to this woman, from the parents that raised him, denying her information about him after about 5 years old and he found out that she really cared about him. The story ended up with him replacing the marker on her grave with a large monument stone and saying that people walking through the cemetery, years later, were going to have to figure out why she was important.

I have no idea where the story came from. I started with a rough idea of trying to find his birth mother and just kept writing until I felt comfortable stopping (about 1000 words in 40 min.). I had more sounds and smells in the story than previous ones, which I was happy with (usually just visual). I’m afraid, not knowing where the story comes from, it will stop making it to paper. Does that make any kind of sense?

Mario

January 27, 2011 at 7:06 PM
firstlinefiction said...

It makes perfect sense! So much of it is about learning to trust the process. Just having faith that the Muse will show up. The more you write the more you will come to know your own habits and develop a relationship with your own creativity.

I am so glad you told me that you changed the character's name and sex to suit your own story! I was so hoping that people would do that.

Keep writing, Mario! It sounds like you are doing great!

~ Lori

January 27, 2011 at 9:12 PM

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