Because six days are not a week, you know – and yesterday was Day 6, and I haven’t got yet to story-time today. Still, six days, six first drafts. So far so good – all the more because I’m not entirely unsatisfied with what I’ve written.

That said…

Ah, the magic of deadlines… what can I say? I’m that kind of person: even an artificial deadline works wonders for me. I should know that by now. I should act on it all the time. Why I don’t do it more is anyone’s guess – but then, if we were all reasonable, level-headed, and mathematically efficient at self-manipulation, what would writers have to write about?

Which brings me (a tad circuitously, I’ll grant you) to the prompts. Each morning a prompt arrives by mail. They are concocted by authors like Joanne Harris, Joe Lansdale and the like, and they are rather interesting. That said, I’m not using them all that much, because they are a little to specific to fit with my historical setting and framework – at least as they are. Some days I find some idea, some spark in the prompt that I can use, more or less obliquely. Some days I don’t. Still, I’m storing all the prompts away – for… oh, the future. Times have this way of happening when one could do with a good prompt.

Or a good jolt. I mean, why should it take me six days to see that this is the perfect chance to experiment a little? Small stories, small bursts, a number of them… a playground! I tried it yesterday, when an idea for a structure popped up – and twenty minutes later I had this odd, bizarrely effective little draft…

Oh yes: I do like Story A Day.

I might also mention that, just in the way of things, the moment I published last week’s post announcing my intentions I got this email resurrecting something I had all but given up on. Something very, very promising, and entailing a good deal of planning, plotting and writing for the next few weeks… So I have that going too, and it is to be seen whether I can keep up both “it” (we might henceforth call it TW or RtM…) and Story A Day. So far I have, but… but. We’ll see.

We’ll see. I’ll let you know.