Yesterday evening, as I (unsuccessfully) trolled the internet for inspiration for my next speculative short story, I realized that not all questions can be answered with a Google-search. Shocking, but true.
That's when I broke down and bought the art book
I blogged about on Sunday. I doubt it'll arrive in time to give me an idea before my next self-imposed short story deadline but it will arrive before I go to "camp."Is it odd [bad] that I'm thinking of this six week summer workshop as camp? Summer camp for writers. Trekking off into the wilderness (or neatly kept university grounds) of New Hampshire, it'll be just like when you were a kid, except much more exhausting and without the arts and crafts made of Popsicle sticks (I hope).
So, in an attempt to get a spark of an idea to catch into a short story to have ready before camp starts (and with my inspirational art-book not set to arrive for 5-9 days), I decided to try the opposite tack: boil down a full sized idea into a tasty reduction sauce. Hey, it works for making a nice sauce-glaze-type-thing to go with steak, why not on a story? (And I just realized I never posted for Jud the incredibly-tasty-and-not-too-involved steak recipe of my father's.)
I don't know if I'll be able to create a story line that's short enough (and complete in 6000 words) out of the opening of the novel I started writing in December/January (and then gave up on when semester started). But, if nothing else, the exercise is making my prose much more concise.
I'm finding that when I think I have all the time and space in the world (a 80,000 word novel) I write way too much. Maybe I should attempt to turn everything into something smaller than it really is.
