Credits
I began a
week ago with only a single long sentence that I had submitted to a “bad
writing” contest. Posting it on my Facebook account, my cousin Tom challenged
me to finish the story. Drawing on my creative juices, I wrote one chapter at a
time – strictly in a stream-of-consciousness style – not knowing how the story
would turn out and, as I finished each chapter, only having a vague idea of the
title of the next chapter. I was writing about one chapter (2-4 pages) a day,
waiting for a new round of creative juices before beginning each chapter.
Despite my
asking each day for any ideas or comments, it was not until around chapter 7
that someone responded. That anonymous comment made it clear that the
navigation from one chapter to the next was not obvious. I went back and added
prior/next links in each chapter – the only change I have made to any
previously written and published chapter.
At that
point I had still not given names to any of the characters except to the main
character – Frederick Flintstone Forchelli – who had been named in that first
single sentence, and to Jennifer, the person in the Office Services company who
Fred relies upon for some administrative activities. But my daughter, Kim,
commented that if the “hero” is Fred Flintstone, then the “bad guy” needs to be
Barney Rubble. I then also added his wife Elizabeth (Betty) as well as George
Jenson (a barely concealed reference to the Flintstones spinoff – George Jetson). I'll let the reader decide what happens to Fred’s new assistant, Wilma!
Thus invigorated,
I wrote the last four chapters of the book in just 36 hours. It all fell
together surprisingly quickly.
So, my
thanks on this to:
·
My
cousin Tom who got me started
·
The
anonymous poster who was confused about how to navigate
·
My
daughter Kim who gave me ideas for names – which I needed to make progress
It’s been a
wild week! I hope all of you have enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed
writing it. This has been a new experience and a fun one.
No comments:
Post a Comment