Category: Writing

Six Sentence Sunday – Teen Angst and Nanowrimo

On By Stephanie IngramIn Six Sentence Sunday, Writing1 Comment

Happy Six Sentence Sunday and look, it’s day four of Nanowrimo and I’m still pretty much sane and speaking coherently. (Enjoy it now because it won’t last.) Best of all, I’ve managed to scoot over to my blog to share with you a snippet of this crazy work-in-progress in honor of Six Sentence Sunday.

In typical fashion, I approached Nanowrimo with no plan, only my love of writing and my desire to produce at least 50,000 words in a single month. Where I lack in plot, I make up for in enthusiasm (and maybe even a little bit of creativity? Or is that craziness? Who knows.) But I sure have fun with it and that’s the main thing. I always say that the rest of the year is for serious writing and November is just for letting loose and seeing where it takes me. I don’t plan to change that.

Since I seem to toggle between semi-serious stories and downright comical and I did a pretty lighthearted story last year, it was time to change gears and go for serious this year. I had this idea a while ago inspired by an REM song. For some reason, I like the characters and I felt compelled to follow them to wherever they may lead me. I’ve never ventured into young adult territory before but this year I might cross that border and see how it fits. But what it is or where it ends up is all yet to be determined. Still early days yet…

So, let’s keep in mind that Nanowrimo is about plugging away and racking up the word count even if that means sacrificing quality for the time being. I’ve tightly restrained inner editor in the dungeon until December so take this with a grain of salt.

Cassie is a 17 year-old with all the usual teen angst that comes with the age. It’s August and senior year looms ahead with responsibilities and choices in deciding what to do after high school. If that wasn’t daunting enough, things are not going well at home. Mom and Dad are getting a divorce and Cassie is getting caught up in the middle…

***

By the time evening came, she lingered outside in Mike’s car as long as she could reluctant to go back into the house that had started to feel more like a prison than a safe haven. Mike held her hand and watched her, no doubt trying to read the expression in her eyes.

“We should run away together,” she said at last breaking the silence between them. Mike inhaled sharply but didn’t respond right away. She stopped staring at the drape covered curtains hiding the shadows that moved within the walls and looked back at him.

“It’s going to get better, Cass, I promise.”

***

Be sure to hop on over to the official Six Sentence Sunday website to check out the other writers. I would venture to guess than more than a few of us are posting our latest and greatest from Nanowrimo this month. Is that a good thing? I sure hope so. 🙂

Six Sentence Sunday – Nanowrimo Rewind, Part 2

On By Stephanie IngramIn Six Sentence Sunday, Uncategorized, Writing7 Comments

It’s the last weekend before Nanowrimo begins. Sensible people are preparing for their writing frenzy. I’ve been called a lot of things in my lifetime but I don’t remember anyone ever calling me sensible. Nonetheless, I’m one step ahead of my usual routine. I actually have an idea and I might spend some time this weekend sitting down and getting to know my characters. When Thursday arrives, I’ll be ready to rumble.

Well… assuming, of course, that the superstorm hasn’t knocked out power…

To celebrate this awesome time of year, last weekend I chose to share six sentences from my very first Nanowrimo. That was a great year writing even if I didn’t end up with a story that I could share with the world. (It was tough enough pulling out six sentences!)

After that first Nanowrimo, I was hooked. There was no resisting the temptation of joining in a second year. Today I’m picking out six sentences from my equally crazy second year disaster from 2009. That year I wanted to go for a bit of a comedic story and I came up with the vague notion of a single mom turned porn star. (I know, I know…) I wasn’t sure exactly how this would happen but I knew I wanted a lot of laugh-out-loud moments to get from point A to point B. I didn’t disappoint myself.

Granted, just like the first year, I didn’t end up with a story that I felt worthy of revision and sharing with the world and it never really did take the porn star turn that I’d originally envisioned … BUT I did end up with something quirky and fun that maybe someday I will revisit. You never know. There might be the seeds of story in all that craziness that is just waiting to grow.

So without further ado, let’s dive into my six for this happy Sunday…

Poor Amy. Her husband has up and left her in favor of a sunny life in Florida. Amy has to find a way to move on with life for the sake of her nine year old daughter Casey but despite the ways he’s devastated her, she still believes he’ll wake up one morning and realize the mistake he’s made and return for her. She sleeps with his photo by her side. Amy’s sister Mary is quick to push Amy back into the real world leading the way through disastrous job interviews and the craziness of online dating. (Ah, who couldn’t love a character who becomes infamously referred to as ‘Fish Guy’.) In the meantime, a mysterious, yet handsome stranger, shows up looking for Mary and he’s got something urgent to tell her that will plunge them both into a perilous mystery. The mutual attraction hits hard but Amy still clings to the life she had before … at least for a while.

Here Amy meets our mystery man…

***

I got up to rummage through the nearby desk looking for anything that would pass as paper. He didn’t look convinced but he’d relaxed enough that he didn’t make a run for it like a scared rabbit when I got up. He was watching me closely when I turned back to hand him the yellowed envelope and pen.

“What?” I asked. Okay, so I wasn’t wearing my most attractive outfit but I didn’t think I looked that awful.

“Nothing,” he said as his cheeks flushed.

***

Make sure you check out the official Six Sentence Sunday website for more fun from fellow writers and tell them Stephanie sent you!

Next week (gasp!) I’ll be ready to share my first six from this year’s Nanowrimo fun.

And just in case you are curious what happened to my third and fourth Nanowrimo endeavor, well, let me tell you. During my third year, I expanded on a short story that I had written for a contest. It was a little messy, of course, but after November I kept at it and eventually rewrote most it – turning it into my first published novel titled The Between World.

During my fourth year, I decided to take the comedic turn again and played around with a girl and her demon lover. That story is undergoing yet another round of edits and will soon make its way into the world as Ghosts Don’t Wear Silk Stockings.

And this year? Who knows! Let’s see where this takes us, shall we?

Until we meet again…

Six Sentence Sunday and Blog Challenge – Year 7

On By Stephanie IngramIn Family and Fun, October Blog Challenge, Six Sentence Sunday, Writing5 Comments

Oh boy, maybe I’m getting in a bit too deep with all these challenges and things to remember. Pretty soon I won’t know whether I’m coming or going. It’s Sunday and I have two wonderful things to share with you today. First of all, one of my all-time favorites, Six Sentence Sunday, where I get to share a snippet of whatever I happen to be focused on for the moment, and secondly, my newest Blog Challenge, where I get to reminisce about my life one year at a time. I skipped age six but it’s just as well because I couldn’t come up with anything significant to say about it, and per the challenge, I need to write at least 25 posts during the month of October so it doesn’t hurt to skip one here or there. Today I focus on age seven.

Six Sentence Sunday, you go first. I’ll keep this brief. If you are interested in checking out the other participants, click HERE for the list. They are always fun to read.

So, pick a page, any page?? Pick a story, any story?? This is, indeed, the difficult part of the challenge. I’m going to hop back over to Nathanial and Sarah’s story even though I’ve not written anything new to add to it recently. I’m still stuck in la la land with no idea which way to run. Don’t you hate when that happens? There is so much from their story that I still haven’t shared, however.

If I have learned anything from my participation in Six Sentence Sunday over the weeks, it is the fact that I generally write really short sentences and a lot of dialogue. But here you go, I came across this little segment which I hope you will enjoy. Grandmamma had been kidnapped by the angerroots but now she’s inexplicably back and Sarah has a lot of questions about how and why, not to mention how their new (albeit handsome) neighbor Nathanial fits into the equation. We can assume at this point that Grandmamma is a lot more than she seems…

***

Grandmamma accepted the tray quietly and began eating with an appetite that Sarah was not accustomed to seeing in her. She lingered, trying to busy herself with cleaning up as she tried to find the right words to phrase her questions. It was a delicate subject to broach.

“Grandmamma,” she said at last, “Do you remember our nice neighbor Nathanial?”

Her grandmother stopped mid-bite and set down her spoon. She looked suspiciously at Sarah as though she had just said something illogical and when Sarah did not continue she huffed and went back to eating.

***

Next up, it’s the October Blog Challenge courtesy of Jane McLachlan and I’m focused today on years six and seven. Awww… look at me, growing up so quickly! It seems like only last week that I was just a baby and here I am in first … and second grade. Where does the time go?

First day of school, first grade. We sat in desks that had metal loops on the front. Not sure what the purpose of the loops would have been but several of the other kids were being silly sticking their feet through them while we waited not-so-patiently for the teacher to enter the room. Being the silly girl that I was, I stuck my feet through the loops as well, only mine didn’t slide right back out like the other kids’ did. My first introduction to my new teacher involved her taking off my shoes and disconnecting me from my desk. Enter embarrassing memory, number one!

Second grade I’d had enough of school so I quit. Well okay, I tried to quit. Actually, I remember it as first grade but my parents still insist that it was second grade, the infamous bad year for everyone in my family. They are probably right. I don’t know what possessed me to want to quit school. As far as I can remember, I’d always enjoyed it. I don’t remember having trouble with the work or any of the other kids at that point. I guess I just woke up one morning and said, nah, I don’t feel like it. Besides, baby brother got to stay home all day and play so why shouldn’t I? Being the Aries that I am, once I’d set my mind on it, that was it. There was no convincing me otherwise.

Therefore, second grade meant a torturous year of my parents trying to send me to the bus stop and me turning around midway and walking back to the house. My parents driving me to school and dragging me to the classroom kicking and screaming my head off. I held my own and insisted but I guess eventually they wore me down because in the end, I finished second grade and went on to third.

Later on down the road when my brother started second grade, he went through a similar experience. At this point, I’m hoping it’s not genetic and if it is, please tell me that I didn’t pass it along to my own kids. I have #1 starting second grade next year and I know I don’t have the patience that my parents had when they dealt with me. I am reminding time and again that my second born has inherited my stubborn streak. Perhaps he will be the one to carry on the family curse? Ah, the joy.

We shall see.

Thanks for stopping by to share my six and reminisce about my early years. It’s been fun. Come back tomorrow for year 8. (Another year closer to when I started writing!)

Six Sentence Sunday – Between World Revisited

On By Stephanie IngramIn Six Sentence Sunday, Uncategorized, Writing8 Comments

Oh, Six Sentence Sunday, we meet again. How I’ve missed you so.

Don’t know the rules to play our little game? Click HERE and prepare to be dazzled. There are many brilliant authors waiting for you to sample their six.

As for mine? Oh, it’s a tough one. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like anything I’ve written. I realize that sounds a tad depressing but it’s kind of a good thing. When I look back and re-read, I come across a million things I’d like to change. I’m seeing mistakes that I’ve made that I’m itching to fix. Perhaps what I’m trying to tell myself is that it’s time to sit down and do a little rewriting? Make those stories shiny and new?

Perhaps.

Let’s begin with The Between World, shall we? It is my first (and at this point only) self-published novel and is essentially the story of a woman lost in life who suffers a terrible car accident, which for all intents and purposes, should have killed her. Her handsome rescuer, it turns out, is not from this world and for reasons, which even I can’t explain as the author, she gets all needy and clingy from the start. Whew! High maintenance this one. Not only, Yalen, will you have to save her boring life as saleswoman but then she’s going to refuse to hit the road when she’s well enough to do so. (ha!) How is that for gratitude when you’ve just broken the rules of your world to save this crazy girl in the first place?

Yalen needs to forcibly send her back to the earthly world where her injuries force her to move back home with her dad and face the small town that she tried to leave behind. She also must confront former best friend / love interest Neil that Dad makes it clear that he still desperately wants her to hook up with. Good grief, Dad, worry about your own life, would ya? Nina doesn’t remember Yalen but she knows there was someone… she’s left with strange longings she can’t quite explain. Settling for a mere mortal just isn’t good enough anymore. And geez Louise, Neil is engaged anyway.

Yalen ruffles the feathers of his superiors and because he works for a sadistic bunch, they send him back to earth to seek and destroy. Now he’s forced to kill the crazy woman that he wasted all that time saving. How is that for a thankless job? Nina senses something the moment he sets foot in the bookstore where she works. She wants him bad because he makes her tingly but she’s also terrified of him. I guess rightly so since he’s planning to kill her and all. All in a day’s work. Just in case Yalen decides to chicken out, Charlie is keeping a watchful eye. We’ll find out later that Charlie was in on the whole conspiracy.

And just in case you didn’t guess it, Yalen does indeed have second thoughts when he sees this hot chick. He’s falling in love with her. Gosh darn it, leave it to love to get in the way of killing a girl and moving on with life, right? Good thing Yalen also catches a whiff of the conspiracy going on here so he’ll at least dig a little deeper before following through on orders anyway. He lures Nina into the woods and then tells her that her mother didn’t actually commit suicide. Now, I don’t know about you but if I had to move forward after my mother’s suicide when I was only 17, I might not appreciate some stranger showing up at my door years later to tell me that it was all a joke and I might not to be feeling so romantic when the psycho tries to kiss me out here in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know. Maybe that’s just me?

I guess I shouldn’t give away the whole story. After all, now that you’re enticed into reading it (?), you’re going to want to find out for yourself how this crazy mess resolves itself. Trust me, it gets weird. But there are good things as well and I hope that since I’ve distanced myself a bit that I can focus on pulling out the parts I like and creating a better story.

You with me?

Good… Now here are my six for the day. I’ve stolen these from the end of chapter two after the accident and after Yalen and Nina’s initial meeting. Happy Reading!
***

They were pictures, frozen in time of events either past or yet to come. Were they real or imagined? She continued to watch until it occurred to her the one thing that all of the images had in common: not one of them included her. The revelation left her feeling unsettled and she managed to turn her attention to a darkness that existed just beyond the slideshow. Her mind went quiet and she relaxed. Only Yalen’s face lingered in her memory.

What’s Up?

On By Stephanie IngramIn Writing1 Comment

The sky, of course.

And besides that, it might be a good time to give you an idea of what to expect from me in the days ahead. I’m participating in two challenges, one new and one old, and I’m pretty excited about both of these.

First of all, in October I’m trying a blog challenge courtesy of Jane Ann McLachlan. I’ve never participated in a challenge to write blog posts before but I’ll do pretty much anything for a little inspiration when it comes to writing. Jane’s challenge interested me right away because I’d already been in a nostalgic mood and thinking about putting that to use in my blog. Her challenge will help to focus that nostalgia for me.

Jane’s challenge presents us with this theme:

“Write a memory or reflection for each of the first 25 years of life. It can be a personal memoir from your life, a reflection on turning a certain age, a recollection of someone else at that age, a poem or a photo, on the ages 1 to 25.”

The challenge?

To write at least 25 of these posts in the month of October. (Eeeks!) Admittedly, this is going to be a tough one for me.

From what I gather, flexibility and creativity in this theme are welcome so it won’t have to be just be a boring rendition of, “this one time at band camp…”

I’ve not found an official linky list or sign-up sheet for this challenge but if you click on the link I attached above, you’ll find all the details that you need to participate if you so desire.

Once we make our way through October, it’s November! November! November! Don’t know why I’m excited about November? Have you been living under a rock? November is National Novel Writing Month, aka Nanowrimo. You can find the details and sign-up on the official site HERE.

(Add me as a buddy while you’re at it. My user name is StephIngram.)

The challenge?

50,000 words in the month of November!

I know a lot of fellow writers who plot and plan, fill out outlines and character sheets, and have a pretty good idea of what they want to write before they sit down on November 1st and let the words start flowing but me? Nah. I embrace the challenge wholeheartedly. I look at Nanowrimo as my time to PLAY! When I sit down on November 1st, at first I might have a scene in my head or the seed of an idea starting to take root but I won’t know who my characters are and I won’t know what sort of mischief they plan to get up to over the course of the next thirty days. I realize some writers consider this reason for heart palpitations and cold sweats but to me, it’s pure bliss.

I just want to write and create and not care about whether the end result is actually reader-worthy. (As a matter of fact, history proves that it won’t be.) But that’s kind of the point, right? The rest of the year my inner editor gets to tell me that what I’m writing isn’t good enough or try to push me into a direction that I feel like I should take, rather than want to take. During November, it’s goodbye editor and hello fun.

And let’s face it, the Nanowrimo forums and community offer new friendships, encouragement, and inspiration for the entire month. Writing 50,000 words in a single month in and of itself isn’t really anything special or exciting but doing it alongside a multitude of other like-minded people is what gives it that special sparkle. (Don’t believe me? Try it! I dare you…)

To make it even sweeter, this isn’t just any old year for me doing Nanowrimo. This is an anniversary of sorts. This is my 5th year!! I first discovered and participated in Nanowrimo in 2008. I didn’t know what to expect that year and I didn’t expect to write 50,000 words but I surprised myself and I did it. By the end of it, I was hooked and I went on to win in 2009, 2010, and 2011. This year will be no exception.

So, what does this mean to you? Well, in essence, it means that once you’ve suffered through a month of reminiscing with me about my first twenty-five years of life, I’m going to drag you straight into the madness that is Nanowrimo. Consider yourself warned.

So… Are you with me or against me? What challenges will you embrace over the coming months?