Between slush reading assignments and making progress on my novel, for the last couple of weeks I’ve been writing a short story for the Codex Writers Group Halloween Contest. Today I finished my first draft, which gives me a few days to let it sit quietly before I read through it and attempt any revisions. (The deadline is October 1st.)
The way the contest works, we’re randomly assigned to provide another person the “seed” for their story. I provided a story seed to fellow Boot Camp alumnus Oliver Dale; it wasn’t a very good seed, but Oliver’s the kind of writer who can make good things from bad.
I got the seed for my story from Meg Stout, with whom I wrote a story for the Codex Collaboration Contest and whose mom was in Dave Wolverton’s Writing Workshop with me — small, small world. Meg’s seed was elaborate but extremely good, in that it allowed for an incredible degree of flexibility. I did what I could with it, but I’m not sure I did it justice.
The story ended up being pretty short (the limit is 7500 words, so we aren’t too overwhelmed by reading and judging all the entries, but I didn’t come close to that), and I think I like it. But I always seem to like what I’ve written until people start pointing out the flaws; hopefully, letting it sit for a few days will help me see the flaws for myself.
And now, apart from the slush reading, I can turn my attention back to my novel.
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