Writer in Motion Story Experiment: Day One

Over the next five weeks I’ll be writing and editing a 1,000 word story while sharing the process on this blog.

This is part of a community writing / blogging experiment called Writer in Motion. It’s kind of like a miniature NaNoWriMo: you commit to writing something in a set period of time, and you try to meet that goal. In this case, it’s a short story (technically a flash piece, at 1,000 words) based on a visual prompt that you write and revise during the contest period.

Like NaNoWriMo, Writer In Motion is free and open to all. You participate by announcing that you’re participating.

I’m intrigued by the community aspects of this, and I tend to do best at short fiction when I have a prompt of some kind. Besides, as a friend recently told me, anything that gets you excited about writing in these times is a good thing. I don’t know many of the people involved yet, but I look forward to making some new acquaintances. Besides, I like writing short stories, and have even published a few.

So I’m throwing down my gauntlet. Let’s do this, baby! Here is the visual prompt as shared by the contest website:

This is a good prompt — for me at least — because it leaves a lot to interpretation. I pondered it during a long drive in the country yesterday, and last night I stalked looked at what others were saying on their blogs and the #WriterInMotion hashtag.

Nyssa Rae was reminded of summers at her grandmother’s cottage, and I’m jealous of all the sensory details the image evoked. Still, I’m better off than K.J. Harrowick whose “brain bluescreened” upon seeing the prompt (what a delightfully on-brand thing for a programmer to say). S.M. Roffey feels there’s something out of place in the image… yes, I get a bit of that vibe as well. Maria L. Berg zoomed in and began trying to identify the various flora in the image, which is hilarious. I think we need to be friends. But Nicole Vane is the participant whose initial reaction to the prompt resembles my own. To me, the really important question is who lives there?

This is the home of a single individual living in solitude. Maybe forced isolation, but more likely self-imposed. The vegetation appears wild and unkempt, telling me that this person is not interested in landscaping (or encouraging visitors). Most definitely. The last thing the inhabitant of that keep (yes, I’ll be calling it a stone keep) wants is a visitor. So of course, they’re going to get one in my story. That’s all I have so far. I haven’t even decided yet if this will be fantasy or science fiction. It could be a little bit of both. There are mountains in the background. Almost all of my novels have mountains, so I feel like those might come in handy.

I suppose you’ll see soon enough. I will have my first draft posted on this blog by August 8th.

Good luck to my fellow #WriterInMotion participants… and if you’re thinking hey, that sounds like a fun experiment, I hope you’ll jump into this madness with me!

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