So this coming week I really must be tough with myself.
Over the years I've learnt to listen to my inner writer, it's that little voice that says you really should or shouldn't do something, whether it's writing or generally. When I ignore it I usually find later that it was the wrong thing to do.
Well that's what happened the other day, and it was quite a shock.
You may have previously seen me mention an epistolary story that I'd written for one of the quarterly prose competitions at the writers club, and that I intended to rewrite it for a Writing Magazine subscribers competition currently running.
Well I made a copy to work on from the version on my external drive, settled down to read through it and see where improvements and additions could be made to increase the overall length to be within the required word count.
At the time it was originally written I had a sneaky feeling it needed to be longer, but I had no idea in what way; so I was fairly confident that I'd be able to work on it now.
Having decided how I could extend the 900 word story without losing the best bits of the existing story, I considered how I could create a slightly more resolved ending.
That was when my inner voice screamed: STOP! Don't do it! It's NOT FINISHED! There's a bigger story behind this. You need to tell that story before you write the end!
And that is not an exaggeration...
After a few deep breaths and half a mug of coffee I felt calm enough to look at the text again, and I knew that inner voice was right. It won't work at the required length for the competition.
It's certainly not a full length work, nor a short novel. Perhaps it's a longer short story or a novella.
So it's being put aside to brew whilst I get on with other stories.
Will I be able to write epistolary story to fit the entry requirements? I don't know. But I do know the decision I made about this existing one was right.
Like the plants in the picture, some stories are neat and compact, and others keep growing where they want to...
Stories can be like these plants... |