Thoughts at Large: I'm a Thief

I realized something the other day as I was working on a story -- a scene I was writing seemed a little familiar.  Not anything blatant, but enough to kind of gnaw at me.  Then I suddenly realized that there had been a similar situation in a Robert Crais book that I'd read months ago.  

Again, it was nothing glaringly obvious.  It wasn't the exact characters doing the exact same things, but man, I could definitely tell where the influence had come from, at least in the setup for that scene.

At first it bothered me.  Here I was trying to create something original, and something I'd read long before had filtered in and come out onto the page.  How could I ever be a decent writer if I couldn't come up with only my own unique, totally original ideas?

Writing Sample: 50-Word Stories

Sorry for the delay in updating this blog – I was out of town the past week and had limited Internet access.

For this version of Writing Samples, I’m offering something a little different -- some Fifty-Word Stories.   

I stumbled upon this website, 50-Word Stories, which is a blog of a new fifty-word story offered every day.  The concept is simple – each story should be exactly fifty words.  Not 49, not 51 – 50 words exactly.  It sounded fun, so I thought I’d give it a try.  As I experimented, I discovered that the word length requirement is kind of a neat restriction, and makes for some entertaining snippets.  I toyed around with it a bit, and I have three samples to post here – “She Left,” “A Nightmare Realized,” and “A Trashy Story.”  Each one was fun to do, and I think allows for some interesting quirkiness to come through.  

By the way, the author of the 50-Word Story site also allows submissions for a guest writer every Monday, so I’ve e-mailed him “She Left” to see if he’d be interested.  His web site says that there is no exclusivity required for posting on his website, so there should be no problem with me posting the stories on my own blog.  So far I’ve heard nothing back yet, but we’ll see what happens.

I hope you enjoy these, and -- as always -- any comments are welcome.

Writing Journal: Current Projects in the Pot

So far, all the writing I’ve shared on this blog has been samples I’ve done with the Creative Copy Challenge.  These are fun, off-the-cuff pieces that I put together as practice and to stir my creative juices.  Although what I post here are slightly edited versions, I generally try to make them as close to rough drafts as possible, because I like to treat them as a form of improvisation – jamming with my writing, so to speak.

I have no problem sharing them on this blog because I treat them as in-the-moment pieces that won’t have much of a life past the point where they’re originally created. 

But is this the only writing I do?  

Nope, not at all, and the purpose of this journal entry is to fill you in on what else I have cooking in the pot