I Did It!

I wish I could report that everything went smoothly for my summer attempt at the 24-hour short story contest at Writers Weekly, but when was the last time everything went smoothly?

Comparatively speaking, however, it was a dream. Last time when I swore I'd never put myself through it again, I started logging on to mail the entry before 11:30, and finally suceeded two minutes past the 12:00 noon deadline. Never before did I have such an overwhelming urge to beat something with a hammer. I decided it was stupid to put myself through blood-pressure-busting stress.

I never learn.

It is always such a delight to think way outside the box for this thing. I made use of my Inspiration software and generally just rolled the ideas around in my head for most of the hours between noon Saturday when I got the prompt and Saturday evening when I'd finished feeding people and cleaning up after them, and I felt I'd earned my time at the keyboard. This was also the first time I was bold enough to announce to my family what I was up to, and the support was great. When they remembered.

I pulled the sentences in the prompt apart. Rearranged them. Played with sensory images. Jotted down at least two different ways to go with the subject matter, and about 11:30 pm was getting just a little frustrated that nothing was taking off in my imagination. I had brief drafts of two different ways to go with the thing; they both seemed too mundane or complicated, but nothing else was on the horizon of my thought processes.

My youngest could sense my frustration and asked me what was going on, so I told him. He offered to brainstorm with me (he is such a sweetheart!) and within minutes I had hit on the idea I wanted to use--a third idea. Minutes!! He was very enthusiastic and complimentary when I told him about it, and from there I was off and running.

Moral of the story: Use your family!

I stayed up all night. Literally. First draft was 1,700+, which really wasn't so bad for a story with a 1050 word limit. My dh stumbled out to the living room once around 3:30 or 4 in the morning and asked what on earth I was doing. When I told him--again--he asked how it was going and when I thought I'd be finished, wished me well and then moseyed on back to bed. We will be having pink snow here for sure this weekk.

I sent the final in just after 7:30 this morning. Part of me was screaming to hold on to it awhile and come back with fresh eyes, but it was going to take a good stretch of sleep to bring my eyes anywhere near fresh. I was happy with the end product (weighing in at 1048 words!) and certainly didn't want to come close to the nightmares of the previous attempt, so I just pushed send and was done with it. Then I went to bed and slept till 10:30 and I've been up ever since, running, I'm assuming on the adrenalin high left over from the entire event.

I love deadlines. I can usually do remarkable things under the pressure of a deadline. I think if I had more of them in my writing life, I'd be more disciplined about sitting down and getting busy.

That and I'm beginning to see a need to bounce ideas off people. I always thought I'd ruin a story or ideas by talking about them. Talking about them doesn't mean talking them to death--each and every detail--just general "what-ifs" or "maybe you should try this". It's a tool I've let hang on the peg board, but I will be pulling it down more often now to organize the thought process. Plus the support you get can be energizing.

I wish I could get the hang of making my own deadlines.

Now I am falling asleep in my chair. I think the adrenalin is gone. I should know if I came anywhere near placing in about a month. Tune in for updates.