So, I decided to actually do something today rather than mooning about, thinking about how I wished I was writing again. So, I signed up for Writer’s Digest, dug through and pulled out several old pages of long ago story titles and ideas, and reread them, and then I pulled out Gail Carson Levine’s Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly, read through the next chapter, and did her writing exercise – which was to sit down and write out 12 ideas for stories no matter how dumb they seemed. Just write them as quickly as possible. To my complete shock, I discovered I actually did have some new stories tucked inside of me. I was almost scared to keep writing for fear the creative juice that appeared to be flowing through my pen would suddenly get clotted. But I did, and though not all the ideas are exactly worthy of anything more than a trash chute, some fairly good ideas did come forth, a few of which I will share below:
2 – a woman ends up caring for an elderly man in a nursing home and spends her evenings listening to his old wartime and love stories. Hearing everything he went through for his one true love ends up saving her marriage.
3 – A commonplace construction worker is injured in a worksite accident and is paralyzed from the waist down. He discovers his unique talent for painting and reconstructs his life around it.
7 – A drifter goes from door to door asking for work and completely changes the lives of those he stays with by changing their perspective on life.
8 – A woman is caught in a fairytale world, living out someone else’s life, and learns that even fairytales come fraught with difficulties.
Anyway – as a follow through, I took an excerpt for a potential story I wrote over 10 years ago, typed it up, and then rewrote it. It is available on my blog here: Once Upon a Story.
Forest Idylls 