Tag Archives: bradbury challenge

Bradbury Challenge: That’s a Wrap

Posted on November 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

Last week I wrote an allegorical tale called Iron Paul.  Paul has been working a lathe in a baseball bat factory in Toledo, OH since the 1960s, and he’s not about to change his ways.  But is he right for being hardheaded, or terribly off-base?

The week before that I wrote a very strange Twilight-Zone-esque story with a creepy twist called Pressed Flowers.

After 17 weeks, 10 stories (some stories took 2 or 3 weeks to finish), and 28,000 words, I’m wrapping up this challenge.  Bradbury’s actual challenge was to write a short story a week for a year.  My modified version was to write a short story a week until either the re-write of my novel was done or until I reached 80,000 words.   Well, the re-write of The 14th Mansion is done, so it’s time to tuck this thing in.

Can’t let the Bradbury Challenge get in the way of my production schedule!  Technically the challenge couldn’t possibly get in the way of the schedule because its on the schedule.  Release date for the book of short stories is set for 8/1/14.

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Bradbury Challenge: Weeks 13, 14, and 15

Posted on November 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

My modified version of the Bradbury Challenge continues…

To be truthful, I’ve been working on this challenge since late July and the pressure is getting to me.  I really need to finish my re-write of The 14th Mansion, and writing a short story a week is sucking up vital writing resources (commonly referred to head space).  But hey, if it being a writer was easy, everybody with a laptop would be J. K. Rowling, wouldn’t they?

Week 13: I wrote a story called Titans Rising, a tale that uses surreal imagery to explore the relationship between humanity and technology.  Wasn’t quite able to finish the story, but in keeping with the spirit of the challenge, I moved on.

Week 14: I penned G.E.M., a story about the next step beyond Technologically Enhanced Mindfulness:  Genetically Enhanced Mindfulness, or G.E.M.  What happens when a particular spiritual viewpoint is embedded in your DNA and you can’t think the way you want to?

Week 15: This week I’ll come up with a new idea, and if there’s time, go back and finish Titan’s Rising.

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Bradbury Challenge: Weeks 10, 11, and 12

Posted on October 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

The challenge continues to be a beneficial exercise, although keeping up with writing a story a week while editing the new novel is problematic.

Week 10:  I got in very little writing time owing to caring for an aging relative.  Stuff happens, right?

Week 11: Wrote a short story called “Danny’s Debts” that, although it started out as a simple twist story in the Twilight Zone mold, turned out to be rather profound exploration of indebtedness.

Week 12: This week I started a tragic story called “Transitory.”  Peter is a philosophy professor who has a nightmare so profound that it shatters his vision of reality to the core.

 

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Bradbury Challenge: Weeks 7, 8, and 9

Posted on September 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

If you’re new to the idea of the Bradbury Challenge, here’s my inaugural post.

I promised myself I’d finish The Vase of Melampus by the end of Week 6, but the thing grew into what looks like almost a novella.  The challenge is to write a story a week, not to not to come up with ideas for novellas and get bogged down.  Melampus was way too big of a concept, so I decided to come back to it later and left it about half done.

Week 7:  I wrote a story called Soup, a quirky little piece that takes the form of a fake newspaper article about the POTUS going off the rails.

Week 8:  This was a super week.  I wrote Rebirth of a Salesman, which may actually be the best short story I’ve ever written.  Love this story, and I plan on entering it in the Zoetrope contest this weekend.

Week 9:  This week I bombed.  Although my writing output is solid, I put all my effort into working on the upcoming calisthenics book and editing the novel.  I did however submit a story to the Paperbook Collective and I made the next issue.  By all means check out the blog and online mag.  There’s some great stuff going on over there (and Jayde is an aspiring ‘zinester, which gives her additional cool points).

Next week: back on the horse.

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Bradbury Challenge Weeks 4, 5, and 6

Posted on September 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

The Bradbury Challenge that I set up for myself was basically to write a story a week.  Week #3 i started The Vase of Melampus.  That turned out to be a really long story, and I spent week #4 working on it.  Week #5 I went to Kill Devil Hills, NC for a week of vacation.  Now it’s Week #6 and I’m going to wrap up The Vase of Melampus and start a new story.

This is a great challenge.  It’s everything Bradbury said it was cracked up to be.  Not only does it require discipline, it requires creativity and imagination galore — in fact I have absolutely no idea what the next story is going to be about.  I got nothin’.  I guess I’ll have to cruise over to Terribleminds and get some inspiration.  Chuck’s always got a challenge going over there.

 

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Bradbury Challenge Week 3

Posted on August 15, 2013 | Leave a comment
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Half an hour after this storm, the sun was out and it was twenty degrees cooler outside. Inside every cloud there’s a silver lining, when one door closes another opens, blah blah blah…

If you’re tuning in late, here’s the skinny.  A few weeks ago I decided to take up a variant of the Bradbury Challenge (writing a short story every week for 52 weeks).  I’m going to write a story a week until I have 80,000 words, at which point I’m going to publish the collection on Smashwords.

Last week’s story was The Vase of Melampus.‡  I didn’t quite finish.  But I’m not going to call that an epic fail, or even a fail.  Why?

Because the reason I didn’t finish The Vase of Melampus is that I got sidetracked writing about 8,000 words on two upcoming fitness/martial arts books.  My daily writing goal is 1,000 words a day, so even though I didn’t finish the short story, I smashed my daily output goal.

I’m putting this loss in the win column.

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‡Check out Melampus.  Trippy, right?

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Bradbury Challenge Week 2

Posted on August 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

So far so good regarding the Bradbury challenge.  Last week’s short story is called Third Time’s the Charm.  A twice reincarnated man makes his second return during the Holy Roman Empire.  After years of study and seeking, a street vendor offers him a good luck charm that he instinctively feels may be the key to unlocking the meaning of life.   Will his third walk upon the earth reveal the truth?  Could it be that the third time is literally the charm?

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The Ray Bradbury Challange

Posted on July 25, 2013 | 6 comments
415px-Planet_Stories_November_1953_cover

Planet Stories feat. Ray Bradbury (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Author Ray Bradbury , most famous for his novel Fahrenheit 451, was known to hand out advice to struggling writers.  There’s a fair amount of it available on the net, including a talk he gave back in 2001 (see link below).

He issued two famous challenges.  The first, which seems to me to me the lesser of the two in terms of payoff, is to read a short story, an essay, and a poem per night for 1,000 nights.  The second, and I think by far the harder challenge, is to write a short story per week for 52 weeks.  Lots of people, like Lin and some weird guy living in Japan, have accepted one or the other challenge.  It’s fun to watch how these exercises are changing writers.

With that in mind, last week I accepted the second challenge albeit in a modified form.  I will write a short story a week, not for 52 weeks, but until I get to 80,000 words.  When I hit 80,000 words I’ll self-publish the collection at Smashwords.

Last week’s story is called Shiflett Courier Service and it’s about a cop who, after getting shot in the face during a robbery in progress, retires and starts his own courier service.  Years later, when he least expects it, he once again finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

This week’s story is called The Assassination of Jhoon Hebren.  Speaker of the House Hebren and his protoge Nico Carter find themselves embroiled in a Justice Department investigation concerning a secret group called Kensho Hat.  Hebren denies everything because he isn’t involved.  Or is he?

This is going to be fun ride.  Shouldn’t be too hard to keep my pencil sharp while the editors are reading my novel The 14th Mansion.  But it’s going to get really challenging when the proofs come back and I start the novel re-write.

Will I be able to write a short-story a week and finish the final draft of the novel at the same time?

I guess you’ll have to stay tuned to find out…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-r7ABrMYU

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