Day 5. Shape Up and Ship Out

Today's mission is going to be totally lost on those of you who can't see the actual book I've been using. There's a blank in the shape of a sailboat. My goal was to write until the whole thing was filled in. As is often the case because of my freakishly large handwriting, I ran out of space in record time (and in mid-sentence) and was glad for the unlimited space that enables me to carry on here. Bonnie Neubauer, the author of the book I've been using, warned me that at some point I would probably latch onto one of the ideas that flowed out of a prompt and would want to run with it instead of carrying on with daily 10-minute exercises. I don't know if it was the power of suggestion or the natural progression of things, but I think that time has already come. I may take a break from the prompts for a while and work with this, but know that if I do, I will continue to blog/write daily because ultimately, that was the goal (sort of like Maureen Johnson's BEDA - Blog Every Day April - except instead of being 30 days long, it's going to hopefully be 365).

At first, I had every intention of posting a short story tonight, but it has gotten longer and more complex as I have played with it, developing a subplot and back story, and because it is far from finished or polished, and I actually have some attachment to the piece, I'm not quite ready to show it to the world just yet. It has no title; I have no idea how it's going to end; I haven't had a chance to do any fact-checks or background research to make sure it's accurate; I just know that I am kind of a little bit in love with the characters I just created, and I don't really want to go shoving them prematurely out into the wide open meadow that is the interwebs, like Bambi's mom on the first day of doe. I want to let them grow, mature, and develop naturally; I want to work out the kinks and turn this into something I can be truly proud of before setting it loose for your critique and/or enjoyment. For now, all I can tell you is this: I thought I was writing a brief, cheesy, Harlequin romance scene, and it has blossomed into something far sweeter and more romantic than some smutty Danielle Steele rip-off. So, I'm logging off for now, but not quitting writing. I'll keep you posted as things progress.