I grabbed a new notebook to throw in my bag as the current two were down to the last couple of pages. Once I got on the train, I opened the blank notebook only to find a story snippet – two pages or so.
It’s my handwriting but I don’t remember writing it.
I don’t remember where I wanted it to go, or where I thought it was heading.
I suppose I could treat it like a writing prompt; and start from what I have.
The protagonist is an accurate fortune teller. Nobody wants the truth of their own future, do they? Not really.
I did have an idea about a person knowing the hour of a person’s death. I think it’d be a good thing to curse someone with but I feel Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black series has done that idea too well.
An accurate prophecy also reminds me of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.
So what was I thinking of? I don’t know…
This month my challenge was to write something short to give away to my website mailing list.
I failed.
But, in failing, I got a lot of other steps done along the way to that final step.
And the idea I have is good, I think. But it wants to be longer than a quick 5-10k words.
One of my signature traits in fanfiction was writing a one shot of say, less than 5k words. I’d post it and then everyone would ask for more. After thinking it over I would extend it until it was a 200k word epic spanning a decade; with lives lost, worlds-changed, the whole shebang. Tsunamis… there were tsunamis!
So it’s not unexpected that I’d itch to extend this freebie.
I could post it as a ‘teaser’ but fanfic readers would be okay with that whereas original fic readers probably wouldn’t like it.
So, I went back into my Word document files and tried to find all my flash fiction and short stories. I loaded them all into a Scrivener file.
What was most obvious was that I haven’t written many lately. *frowns at self*
Also that some of them are pretty good. *pats self on back*
And a lot could be extended, exactly like my old fanfic one-shots. *rolls eyes at self*
So, maybe that’s what I’ll do… pick one, edit it, run it through Scrivener to make a file, make a cover in Canva, work out how to use Bookfunnel or one of the other delivery devices, and THEN I’ll give it away.
Sheesh… maybe that’ll be next month’s challenge?
Or next week’s; I can get that done in a week. *laughs at self again*