Living the Fictional Dream

Yikes! I really need to make the time to go through all the rejections I’ve gotten since NaNo and find more markets to resubmit those stories to. Poor little stories… I’ve been neglecting you!

The other thing I need to do is write some prompts. No one has written one for my writing group’s monthly prompts contest this month. It would be the perfect time for me to swoop in, bang out 5 prompts, and take home a $10 prize (and, thus, earn back the money I donated to the prize pool for the year).

The good thing about the prompts contest is that when I write 5 prompts for the monht, I usually get at least one or two flash pieces that I can shape up into something marketable. “The Mad King,” “The Dragon Thief,” and “Honor Bound” are all flash pieces that I wrote based on the prompts contest and subsequently published — and there are others in my submission queue. “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Knight” also came from a prompt, but that was a prompt we did at a meeting, as opposed to the monthly contest — though the same principle applies.

Of course, to be crowned the February winner, I’d have to write 5 prompts in 10 days… Pressure! And the problem is, I can be really picky about my prompts. I don’t like them too specific, but they also have to engage my muse — and my muse has been very fickle as of late.

Oh, and speaking of prompts, if you’re in the market for some, you should check out my writing group mate Stephanie’s blog. She’s been posting a prompt of the day for a while now, and there is some fun stuff there.