Hey thought this would be a good opportunity for those looking to get their writing out there. It's free and the prize is $500 amazon gift card and a donation to the charity of your choice! https://www.bookboro.com/vote-plot-twist/

I've sold about 250 copies because of a facebook video that went viral. I requested an AMA for a few weeks from now.

My husband, daughter and I are going to Ferguson this weekend to participate in the Weekend of Resistance.

Do you guys have any suggestions for marketing my book?

For me, it's a (nearly-all) female cast stoner road trip film (halfway through the first draft of the screenplay), and a sci-fi web series involving the colonization of mars (still in the earliest phases of world-building).

I'm interested to know what other projects people here are working on =]

I've been out of work since I graduated from graduate school two years ago.

I've tried to develop storylines and plots and...

What's the point?

I mean, publishers...they only care about what will sell. I had a storyline about werewolves as a metaphor for being GSM or having a chronic illness, but frankly, they don't care, do they? I neve reven finished my prospectus, because...why?

I mean, why develop long-term plot arcs? Do publishers care? Does anyone? Not even my partner cares.

How the fuck do I suceed as an author!? I just want to write stories and make enough to live on. I don't need to be rich! Just...

Not ignored.

If I'm writing a story where the character is a complete jerk and is supposed to be completely reviled by the reader, should I avoid using sexist, ableist, or any other such language that I avoid using in my day to day life? Though, I want the character to be exactly the kind of person I also despise, so I'm really not sure what to do. What are your thoughts on this?

Quiet. The corridor’s quiet, no footsteps. Can’t trust it, though. Could just be lying in wait for us. Bastard, bastard, bastard! He got Rachel. Not going to get me.

I found a good spot. I had to move a few of the file cabinets, but I’ve managed to build a little fort away from the window, half hidden by the coat rack. I’m safe here, as safe as you can get, anyway. I’ve put on facepaint with my rubber stamp, and I broke up my outline by stapling loose folders to my suit. I can hide here for days.

God, I miss Rachel. She put up USB cable tripwires around the door and then hung paperclips on them so they’d jingle if anyone set them off, so we’d have advance warning. She sketched a still-life of our office on the back of a fiscal integrity report and hung it in front of the security camera. It’s still there. They haven’t caught on yet.

It won’t last forever.

“Mike. Hey, Mike.”

“Shut up,” I snap at him. There’s a slight pause.

“Have you thought about what I said?”

“We’re not going anywhere, Lawrence.”

“I got a wife and kids, Mike! They’ll be worried sick by now!”

“Okay, Lawrence,” I say, “I need you to be quiet now. I need you to be silent. I need you to shut the fuck up before Management hears us!”

Lawrence used to hide under his desk. Stupid, that’s the first place they’ll look. I was sure he’d be the first one to go, the little prick, but the Rachel decided to raid the vending machine downstairs and got cornered by Management on the fire escape. They took her to the board room, and we haven’t seen her since.

Now Lawrence is in the big filing cabinet right between the two windows. It’s hollow, and it used to be Rachel’s spot. That’s why he’s survived for as long as he has. But he’s cracking. I can tell that he’s cracking.

“I’m gonna call them,” he says suddenly.

“You are not calling anyone.”

“But they got to hear from me, Mike! It’s been three days!”

“No, and that’s my point, it hasn’t even been three days yet. There’s still two hours of Day 2 left over. Have you done the math, Lawrence? Have you got any idea on the kind of cash we’re going to pull from all of this? 72 hours of paid overtime, at upper-middle management pay. You’ll be able to buy your wife that diamond yacht you’ve been talking about. We talked about this, Lawrence. You, me, Rachel…we all agreed to do this.”

“My wife’s gonna kill me.”

“Your wife is going to say, oh Law-rence, you shoundna have and then she's going to give all the kids money to go to the movies, and then she's going to take you to the upstairs bedroom where you'll give her a diamond ring the size of your fist. Hang in there. We’re almost through.”

That was an hour ago. He’s been quiet since.

I hold my breath, try to slow down my heart. My ears strain like a clothesline connecting two apartment buildings on separate tectonic plates. I can’t hear anything. The coast is clear.

I climb out of my hiding place, my tongue as dry as the cover of a book predating the invention of the printing press. I desperately need to visit the water cooler.

A drink of that push-dispensed water! Men have murdered for less.

I need a drink. Need it bad, and that’s why I’m crawling across the office floor, slow and careful, keeping my desperation in check. If I can just stay cool, I get to have a drink of water. If I mess this up, Management gets me.

I make it to the door with the frosted glass window and ease it open, slow like a burglar glacier. The corridor outside is empty. I half expect a ball of printout to come tumbling past, like in a cowboy flick.

The water cooler is to the left, in the corner next to the janitor’s closet. It’s one third full. Part of me wants to scream, say that’s not enough, but I strangle that instinct. Stepping carefully on the carpet, I make my way over.

Just my luck. No cups. Some unholy witch of a cleaning lady’s emptied out the trash, too – nothing for me there. I smother a wail, push the button labeled “Cold” with my left hand, cup my right under the cooler’s nozzle.

The sensation is immediate and out of this world. Cool and wet and just everything water always is, but you never notice because you can always get more. I put my hand to my mouth, drink. The sip is disappointingly small. I repeat the ritual several times, splashing some on my face and in my hair.

I breathe out in relief. Then my stomach tightens. Someone is standing right behind me. I scream.

Management is a murky silhouette behind the glare of the lamplight. I feel dizzy, sick. I drank too much water too quickly, after too long a time.

“You know,” the silhouette drawls, “that was real stupid of you. You could have hurt yourself, Mikey. That stunt you just tried to pull this weekend – you think it hasn’t been tried before?”

“Think I don’t know the rules?” I ask, trying to sound tough. It’s hard to sound tough when you’re squinting into a lamp and your stomach is cramping. “I know company rules. You owe me overtime, big time.”

The silhouette laughs, starts with a chuckle and goes on from there until it’s practically bent over with whooping. “You think the company’s going to pay you after this? Mikey, Mikey. Don’t you get it? That’s not how we work. Tell him, Lawrence.”

You fuck. You traitorous little fuck.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” he says. “I had to do it. I have to take care of my family.”

“You-”

The judas shakes his head. “Paid vacation, Mike. It was all paid vacation. We didn’t earn a cent.”

They lead me out of that room, and neither Rachel nor Lawrence, gaunt and hollow-eyed, meet my eyes. But then, I can’t meet theirs either.

Hey guys!

Yesterday I finally finished my NaNoWriMo. It's the first time I ever took part, my first attempt at a novel, and I'm pleased that I've caught up with everyone else and finished a first draft. I wrote 2000 words or more every day, with only two 'off' days where I wrote only 1000 (due to illness or whatever) and I feel like, over the past 50 days, I've really developed a writing habit and enjoyed myself.

So now I'm done, I'm kinda in a "What next?" mindset. I want to start editing, but I also want to take a break, let the story simmer for a bit, read something good for a change!

But man... I really want to keep writing!

Anyone else feel the same? And anyone here maintain that habit of writing every single day? I guess I would need to start a new book or something, even though I have this one to edit/re-write.

What kind of stuff do you write, to keep your fingers going? Does blogging count if you're focusing on creative writing?

Would taking a break from writing destroy the magic, as it were? I feel like I have a good thing going here and I've commited major sins from taking today off to play video games, haha.

I'm working on a comedy script and I've been working on it for so long it almost doesn't make sense to me anymore. I need help getting the thing into shooting shape, and I'd like a fresh pair of eyes that don't know me or the project to at least give me feedback and maybe do some work on it. Anyone interested?

The girl knelt in the dirt next to the grave. Tears filled her eyes. “Daddy?” she said quietly, into the darkness.

Please work, please work, please work, she thought. She curled her fingers into the fresh soil, feeling the soreness in her forearms. It had taken her weeks to dig him up. She had spent long nights in the back corner of the graveyard, jumping at every sound, praying that the groundskeeper wouldn’t notice her there, or notice the tarp she’d used to cover her progress.

She breathed as quietly as she could, listening, hoping. She hadn’t dared to open the coffin, so she had done the ritual on the lid. Maybe that messed it up, she thought, but the sites and the people she had consulted never mentioned anything about it.

Someone coughed. She nearly jumped out of her skin. Another cough.

The girl leaned over the edge of the grave. She could make out the faint outline of the candles she’d shoplifted from the dollar store, the bay leaves she’d taken from her foster mother’s spice rack, and the blood she’d saved from her last cycle.

She had been terrified they’d find it, hidden in a plastic baggie in her pillowcase, and send her back to the hospital. When her father died, she had horded scabs, pieces of hair, nail clippings, anything she thought she could use to rebuild him. Her first foster family found it, and sent her to the hospital. She had made the mistake of trying to explain her plan, and spent the next year learning to tell them what they wanted to hear.

She was better, now. That was only grief, a child who watched too many movies, thinking she could raise the dead. She smiled slightly, painfully, thinking how easy it had been to convince them, and how long it had taken her to do it. And how long it had taken her to complete the ritual. She winced, remembering.

Her father had died when she was 8. She found the ritual online when she was 10, and cried herself to sleep for weeks when she saw it required menstrual blood from a relative. Her older sister had died in that car accident, too. It would be years before she could do the ritual, but now, finally, she had done it.

The coffin below her thumped, and she heard a moan of pain. “Daddy?” she asked again, louder, a note of panic in her voice, tears streaming down her face. She slid down the side of the hole she had dug, braced herself, and pulled open the coffin.

Her father laid there, paler than she’d remembered, in his black suit. His hair was neatly braided, and his tie was left loose, as it always had been when he got home from work. In his left hand, he held the white rose she’d placed in his coffin so many years ago. It had dried out, but like him, it had been preserved. He moaned and opened his eyes.

“Jacqueline,” he croaked.

“Daddy,” she whispered. “Daddy, I missed you so much. I brought you back.” Tears splashed onto her hands, holding his hand, onto the rose.

“Jackie, it hurts so much,” he said. He shook and struggled, and finally was able to sit up. He turned his head towards her. “My little angel, where are you?”

“I’m right here, Daddy,” she said, taking his other hand and putting it on her face. It was cold and rough, but it was her Daddy’s. She looked into his eyes. They were black and sunken into his face. “I’m right here, can you feel my face?”

“You’re warm,” he said, and his face contorted. “I’m dead, aren’t I?” He started shaking, like he was sobbing, but no tears came.

“No, you’re alive again, I brought you back,” Jacqueline insisted. She squeezed his hand.

“Jackie, my angel. Thank you, angel.” He rubbed her cheek, and put his hand back next to him. “The magic is in your blood, but sweet Jackie, I told you there are things we never do.” He sat up and winced, grabbing the left side of his chest. “We die when our bodies have had too much pain. Bringing back the dead is torment, angel.”

“I...” Jackie started. I can’t do anything right, I waited years, I worked so hard, and he wants to be dead. She started sobbing.

“There, there. You didn’t know.” He squeezed her hand. “I should have been there to guide you, me or your mother or your grandmother. It’s too much for a child to learn on her own.”

Jacqueline cried. “I just wanted my Daddy back.”

“I know you did, angel. But you can’t. You know as well as I do, this magic doesn’t last long.”

She sniffed and wiped away her tears. “I have more...” she gestured up, out of the grave. “I could keep bringing you back, a day at a time. We could live together again. We could be a family again.”

“No,” her father said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “You will not defy the Gods and the laws of nature to bring me back.”

She choked back a sob and hung her head. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Come here, angel.” He reached out his arms and gave her a cold hug. His rough lips kissed her cheek. “Bury me and let me sleep. You’ll see me again, soon enough.”

Jacqueline kissed his cheek, and handed him her rose. He laid back down in his coffin, and she closed the lid. She climbed back out and grabbed her shovel.

“Goodbye, Daddy. I love you.” She buried him again, much faster than she had dug. She finished as the sky lightened. She folded her tarp and put it in her backpack, and put the shovel back behind the shed she had found it in, and walked home.

During NaNoWriMo I saw a writing prompt that said, "a girl meets her father for the first time," and my first thought was, "...because she's just brought him back from the dead." This sprung from that idea.

I'd appreciate any feedback y'all have on this - I'm new-ish to fiction, and could use some guidance as to what's good, what's bad.

WOO HOO 50k DONE

Okay, so I'm not actually done with my story, but I'm done with NaNoWriMo!

I know we've got more winners here, where are you? Post! Celebrate!

And it's actually Wednesday this time!

You know the drill.

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

Total words to date: ####### (optional)

Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

Where are y'all lately? ):

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

Total words to date: ####### (optional)

Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

Optimal writing weather: _______ 

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

Total words to date: ####### (optional)

Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

Please, split your day 22 totals off if you know them.

For a minute I was ready to ask if maybe I should just stop doing these, because they're not usually popular threads and I always do them late, but nevermind that temporary feeling of bleh.

Writing these writing prompts gives me a chance to be creative. So there!

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

Total words to date: ####### (optional)

Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

Favourite snack food whilst writing: (SO MANDATORY)

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

Total words to date: ####### (optional)

Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

Right. Day 19!

 TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

 Total words to date: ####### (optional)

 Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

 Goal for Week 3 (ending Nov 21): ###### (optional)

Yeah so I am bad at formatting but there wasn't a thread up so I made one.

You know the drill. Report your words!

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory)

TOTAL WORDS: ##### (optional)

Goal for week 3:

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

Total words to date: ####### (optional)

Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

What's your goal for the end of week 3 (=nov 22)?: ##### (MANDATORY) 

I'd like to say you get to choose which gifs you get in response this time, but really, y'all are getting Twin Peaks this time. Day 17 brought in 2292 new werds, for a collective total of 139816.

One of the most interesting things about NaNoWriMo is it gives fledgling writers like us a sense of what works and what doesn't for our personal writing juices to flow. Now that we're over the halfway mark and some of us have got quite a few words under our belts, what is the magic set of circumstances that get you writing?

I'll start: I need my kids to be out of the house (not just napping). Or I need to be out of the house alone. This gets me to stop worrying about chores and meals and start thinking like my stuff matters... and then I can write. I got all my words so far this way.

 TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

 Total words to date: ####### (optional)

 Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)

 I write best when I: ________________ (optional)

 

Ya'll know the drill. Post yer werdcounts, I'm too lazy to do the thing today.

Sorry, I lost track of the days. I'm terrible about that.

HALLELUJAH halfway point!

Take a moment sometime today to look back at all the work you've done. All those words. Squint your eyes till they all become ants on a page. You see how many ants there are? Hundreds and hundreds of them. Thousands of them. TENS of thousands of them. Now they're beginning to crawl off the page aren't they. They're just pouring off your screen. Where are they headed?

TO YOUR FINGERS.

Your moment is up, Wrimer. Get writing or I'll set all of garlicstuffedolives's ants on you! You're only HALFWAY there. Werd it, werd it, werd it.

TODAY'S WORDS: ##### (mandatory!)

 Total words to date: ####### (optional)

 Favorite lines from today: ______________ (optional)