A change of story

Daily Goal: 500 words.
Yesterday I wrote 270 words.

Better than yesterday, I guess. I decided to change the story I am working on. The previous story left me a bit stuck, so I'm giving another one a try.

The short story I am working on now is about a couple's thwarted attempt at attending the first party after the birth of their daughter. The structure is simple: (1) the couple get ready for the party; (2) they arrive at the party, but the baby's crying forces them to leave; (3) the baby has fallen asleep and the couple reflect on the day while eating takeout.

I am writing the story with a themed publication in mind: Stealing Time. With a deadline in October, the parenting magazine has an issue whose theme is "Celebration". I read those details when I got my newsletter  from Duotrope. It stuck in my mind and that little plot above slowly formed over a couple of days. Duotrope, by the way, is a useful site for finding a publisher.

It made more sense to start out with a story where I have a more fully formed plot. The 200 and some words I wrote yesterday flowed quite easily. I have a feeling that the next 200 will not flow as well, but I hope to at least best today's effort tomorrow.

I have called the story "The Dinner", follow the link to Google Docs if you would like to read or comment.

The last few days have been mostly taking care of the baby. No parties have been thwarted, however. I was at a party a week ago and all went well. She is getting her first tooth and requires a bit of extra attention. We made another long trip today to see if we could pick up Neil Gaiman's American Gods. The bookshop must have had all his other novels and several copies of them, but Gods was sold out. I do make the trips mostly to entertain my baby girl, though, and give her mother a break.

First!

Daily Goal: 500 words.

Yesterday I wrote 0 words.

Another plateau in my life, another blog. This very space held my last attempt at a blog about writing, but with a new start I've revamped the blog and changed the concept as well.

I aim to get published. Each day I've set myself a goal of writing 500 words. Each Sunday I hope to finish a short story and send it to some publisher for consideration.

The idea about finishing a short story each week I got from a YouTube video featuring Ray Bradbury:

The lecture he holds is about an hour long. Unless you are a fan, I wouldn't recommend watching it all. He rambles on about how great writing is and how he got started. The advise I took from the lecture - about finishing a short story each week - is about the only useful thing he says about the craft of writing.

The structure of this blog I thought would be different from Bradbury's lecture. Sure, I'll probably ramble a bit, but I'll try to get one tip, trick, advise or thought about writing into each post. Today's tip is the one from Bradbury :) I'll also keep it simple, casual and fast. If I am to get into the habit of making a daily update, I need to be able to write a new post in half an hour or so.

I thought I'd finish each update with writing about what has happened since my last post: both in terms of writing and in general. Since I didn't write anything yesterday or today (never mind the fact that there hasn't been any last post to count from), I'll tell you about how my day has been so far.

I woke at 6 o'clock in the morning - or rather my almost 8 month old girl woke at that hour. It took about an hour to get her to take her first nap, which lasted 40 minutes. She napped in her stroller (or baby carriage), with me pushing it, so it didn't provide much of a break.

The next nap she spent with her mother, it gave me a two hour break, which I spent sleeping.

Since then I've been taking care of the baby, doing the dishes, and I had a long trip, with the baby to a bookstore to see if they had Neil Gaiman's American Gods. The trip was fine, but the shop didn't have the book. I want to get it for my brother-in-law, whose birthday is coming up.

My half hour has come and gone. I'll give what I've written a quick read-through, before I post. Then I'll refill my cup with coffee and hope to churn out 500 words or more.