Progress Report for August 19th, 2014
Recently, a dear friend’s mother passed away. I am a strong believer that family and friends are the most important aspect of life. As I watch over his home, I have slowed my writing and switched to reading . Today, I have finished Galapagos by Vonnegut and suggest it to anyone who enjoys Vonnegut. While reading it, I spent a lot of time analyzing how he outlined the piece. I also analyzed what was in the original structure and what was impromptu. Either way, it is an impressive piece of literature that I thoroughly enjoyed. In other news, I have written a new piece Milgram and began work on a new piece: 3 in One (I can’t remember if I mentioned this piece, its original name was Three in 1).
3 in One began percolating during a discussion with my old philosophy professor while at lunch. It will be an experimental piece that I will enter in a competition. It has so many moving parts, which makes it one of the only short stories I have written with an in depth outline. Normally, I write down events and other important details of a short story on scrap paper. In this case, I outlined the piece on my 18×24 paper (reserved only for novels) because it is so complex.
Read MoreProgress Report for August 11th, 2014
I took a minor vacation this last two weeks from writing progress reports because there hasn’t been much activity (due to my birthday) these last two weeks. I submitted a lot of pieces to different competitions (these will be available as soon as I hear from the magazines) and entered a few this month. One piece – that is completed – is Relationships and another piece – that is being outlined – is called Three in 1. One of my old professors came back into town and gave me more tools to hone my craft. The idea that sprung up from an exercise is Three in 1 and it will be my most daunting foray into experimental writing. For reference, the exercise he suggest had nothing to do with writing a piece in this format, but – by practicing the exercise – I decided to tell the story in this format. I am excited; I am finally going to attempt a style of writing that has been on my list for a year (it is a surprise). In other news, I am sending out the third treatment for Journey to God and it will be accompanied by a treatment of Tesla’s Travels. So, I keep pushing forward and reading fiction (finished The Siren’s of Titan on Saturday) and nonfiction (research). The fourth book is still in the research phase, and I am hoping to begin the first chapter at the end of August. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful morning!
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