The winner of Mindflights Issue #5 is Michelle! Congrats Michelle! I've sent your email over to Angie and she'll be in touch with you concerning your prize.
Now, as for my WIP, Desert Nomad, I'm at 35,000. Not much more than last week, but that's because I worked on two short stories this week. And I'm taking the WIP slow this time, perfecting every sentence for those agents :) It's a new tactic and you'll have to stay tuned to see if it works.
The two short stories that I finished are Malicifer, for the Sword and Sorceress Anthology
and Lion's Heart
A story I wrote for my friend's new publication Hazard Cats. Everyone should take a look and consider writing something. The only criteria is that it has to be about cats.
With this story I tried to write outside my comfort zone. For the first time in my writing life, my setting is Africa and the POV is a male warrior. I had a lot of fun imagining the bush and researching plants and animals in Africa.
Have you written outside your comfort zone? What was it?
18 comments:
Congrats on getting two shorts finished this week! Yes, I push myself outside my writing comfort zone as often as I can. Short stories are a wonderful platform for such experimentation. The two genres that proved the most...uncomfortable... for writing short stories were speculative fiction and erotica.
Spec fi is a fascinating genre that demands a lot from the writer in terms of marrying imagination and believability. It was beyond hard for me!
And since I knew I'd eventually be writing romantic relationships into my novels, I tried my hand a couple times with erotica short stories. Hard to do, but very educational :)
Have a nice evening!
Congrats on the two short stories. And lately everything I write seems outside my comfort zone. :) I'm hoping that will pass with some writing I hope to be doing on my upcoming break.
I tried writing something historical and using a different voice that wasn't natural for me. I used slang. I gave it to a friend and he said he hated it! lol. It's great he was honest--he saved me some embarrassment.
Outside my comfort zone is violent scene writing. I put it off and put it off until I can't anymore.
Writing a novel shouldn't be a race, so ... take it easy and enjoy, says I.
I try to step outside my comfort zone every now and again. The first time I tried a pseudo-Victorian vibe, it was an out of body experience: it felt as if someone else was writing the thing through me. Now it's become part of my toolkit.
More recently, I tried a cyberpunk story start. Haven't continued it yet, but promises to be fun.
I tried sci-fi and YA in short fiction. An interesting experience all around. Not something I'll put as much time in with my more serious projects, but learning the different aspects can be a lot of fun.
Slow and steady wins the publishing contract... :)
Thanks so much for the contest! I can't wait to read the issue!
I'll have to check out that publication. I love cats!
I'm not really sure what's outside my comfort zone. I discovered my love of writing at a very, very young age and have written pretty much everything you can think of, from historical romance to erotica to high fantasy to space opera.
Writing from a male perspective is something I'm still working on, but it's getting more and more comfortable.
Your novel sounds awesome! Warrior man in the bush... Reminds me of my younger Tarzan-reading days.
I'm impressed with how much you've accomplished lately. It's inspiring.
Congrats. Two shorts is a big accomplishment.
Congrats on your stories! :) I have written out of my comfort zone before and it's difficult. I usually don't write dark, horror, or suspense, so when I tried last summer, it was incredibly tough to do but it was a good experience!
I often write outside my comfort zone and I have to do a lot of research. Then, I reread it later, and I think it sucks and it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about. So for now, I'm just sticking with what I know :)
Great job on the WIP. It's not a bad thing at all to take your time. I really need to get back to my WIP.
As for writing outside your comfort, I feel awkward writing romance. Give me gore and violence, and I do fine, but make characters fall in love, it feels awkward to me. I'm just weird like that. *laughs*
Congrats to Michelle!
And congrats to you for writing two shorts this week. I've written outside of my comfort zone before, and it wasn't pretty. More like a train wreck. But I keep doing it, and maybe one day I'll feel comfortable with it. At which point I'll know I need to try something else.
Congrats on accomplishing a lot over the week. Writing outside my comfort zone every so often keeps me on my toes. It's probably time to go there again.
Good job on finishing two short stories. And good luck with the novel too!
Congrats on all your work this week!
I tried to write a YA novel a few months ago. I thought I'd just give it a go and see how it went. It was a lot of fun, but I just couldn't get comfortable with the voice of my protagonist. Still, nothing ventured, right?
Aubrie! I'm going to check out that kitty site! I have a world that involves teh kittehs!
congrats on the stories, too! Uhm... does it count if my "comfort zone" is usually uncomfortable?... not sure if it is....
Strange question for you ... do you have a hard time juggling more than one writing piece at a time? Although I'm kind of scattered about many things in my life, I'm only able to focus on one thing at a time as a writer.
In terms of writing outside of my comfort zone .... not yet, but I'm getting there :-)
Post a Comment