Hey ho, squiders, when was the last time I posted on all the days I’m supposed to in a week? WHO KNOWS
(In case it wasn’t clear–and it’s probably not–I post on Tues/Thurs every week.)
(In theory.)
I’m being a little more abstract with my morning pages lately, partially because sometimes it’s a pain in the butt to look up a prompt before I get going, and partially because, yeah, starting fifty million stories and finishing none of them may not be the best practice in the long run. So I’m doing some stream of consciousness, some writing exercises, and some brainstorming in addition to the stories.
But doing so reminded me of a game I used to play in middle and high school.
I started writing around when I was 8, and enjoyed a period of popularity in middle/high school when I had a series of short stories about the Evil Teachers’ Association (the ETA), all of which were punny and silly, and sometimes included actual teachers (with their permission).
(For example, there were pi fighters, which you couldn’t get an exact lock on.)
(Oh, yeah, these took place in space.)
(The ETA got a bit distressingly popular. I stopped sharing them outside my friends’ group when I found someone else had posted them online without my knowledge or permission.)
So, flush with success and the admiration of my peers, I started this game. “Tell me anything, and I can write a story about it.” My friends would come up with increasingly strange things (though the only one coming to mind right now is rotten tacos), and I would go off and then present them with a couple pages of story a few hours later.
I got writing practice. My friends got a fun story. Win win for all. As far as I know, no one ever disliked one of these stories. Or, at least, they were too kind to say so.
(In retrospect, this game is probably how I was victorious at the Chopped Writing Contest I did at MileHiCon a few years ago, despite the fact that I was going up against much more highly decorated authors, including a Hugo Award winner. It was set up like the Chopped cooking show, where each round we got new story elements that had to be incorporated into the story we had written previous rounds. I don’t remember everything, but there were definitely nuns, a space elevator, and Willy Wonka.)
The changes in the morning page routine reminded me of this game. I’m not sure this is a useful skill in the long run (unless one is routinely doing Chopped-style writing contests. Maybe for money) but it is, indeed, one I have.
I may start asking the kids for random ideas, here and there, and add the game back into the routine.
We shall have to see.
Hope your week/month is going well, squider, and I’ll see you next week!
