First, a warning: this week will be really busy in meatspace for me once the writing gets thrown in, so expect even less meaty updates than usual from me.
I’m behind in the exactly 1667 words a day challenge. I was doing so well until a few days ago when I spent the whole day Internetting and said “Screw it, I want to sleep” instead of writing. I’ll probably do the same tonight since I have to be awake in eight hours, which will put me even further behind. The problem is that I have to come up with a short story idea, figure out how to condense it into 1000 words, and then write it along with everything else that accompanies it. For someone who is used to long-form prose, this is harder than it sounds.
I know, I’ve said it before. Coming up with the ideas is hard enough, yes. But once I start cramming an entire idea in such few words, the task seems nigh impossible. Impossible, a word I never thought I’d be saying. There’s no room for rambling until plot comes out like I can with a novel because everything after word one thousand gets cut off, even if it’s still the first scene. The experience of writing a short story is definitely a learning one. How do you adjust your state of mind to that of short prose?