Diary Challenge: 7th-13th March 2011

I had decided that I wasn’t going to do Script Frenzy this year, since I’m doing this diary challenge thing. I was very set on it. Then it occurred to me that I could do Script Frenzy as my diary challenge next month! All I need is something I can write in 30 little blocks that would come to 100 pages when typed up, so 30 three-minute webisodes, or radio plays, or little web comics, and I’m good to go. But not only to I have no idea what I want to write, but I’ve got no clue what medium to go for either, so for the weeks leading up to Script Frenzy I’ll be doing some idea generating exercises and trying out some different stuff. This week I’m going to focus on radio. Next week will be comics and the week after will be motion. Hopefully after all that I’ll have an idea for something to do.

Monday 7th March: Description Challenge

We’re going to go for another character challenge, but this time we’re going to generate their name using the Seventh Sanctum quick name generator. Then we’re going to look up the meaning of our chosen name and use it for inspiration for some of the character’s traits. Finally, we have to describe them, but remember that this is a character for a radio play so the focus is not going to be a physical description. Describe what they are like. You’re giving a voice actor some info so they can read the part, what do you think they would benefit from knowing about them?

Tuesday 8th March: Dialogue Challenge

Give your character a rival of some kind, maybe in work, in love, in yacht racing, I don’t know, just a rival, and portray a confrontation between them.

Wednesday 9th March: Scene Challenge

Write a scene with your character at some kind of party. It can be anything and they don’t have to have been invited to the party :). But it must be written as a radio script.

Thursday 10th March: Dream Challenge

Dreams again :). If you fancy writing your dream in script form all the better!

Friday 11th March: Stream of Consciousness

I’m taking a little break from poetry, and since Pot Luck is probably going to be planning until Script Frenzy I’m going to make this the free writing day this week. Just for a while. Poetry will be back. But today’s free writing topic word is ‘Energy’. Make of that what you will.

Saturday 12th March: Flash Fiction Challenge

Write a piece of Flash Fiction involving your character. Hopefully we’ll know enough about them to think of a story that would suit them. If not just use one of the random generators on Seventh Sanctum again :). Oh, and it must be a radio script, in case you didn’t get that ;).

Sunday 13th March: Pot Luck – Series plan

If you were to do a full radio series about the character you’ve been working with this week, what would the first couple of episodes be. Plan out as many or as few as you like.

And that’s it for radio plays! Next week we’re doing comic books. TTFN!

Diary Challenge: 28th Feb – 6th Mar 2011

I’m still behind, but keeping on top of it. I’ve nearly finished Valentine’s week. I’m sure I had something in mind for my Flash Fiction piece at the time but now I can’t think of anything! That’s going to be my job for today. But, enough about me being slow, on to the new challenges.

I want to try something different this week. We’re breaking the format and going for some Speculative Fiction. You need to come up with a ‘What if…” scenario and produce 7 different pieces of writing exploring it. They can all be scenes, but you might want to do a script or a news report or something for one of them and that would be great too :). So, what if people could fly? What if animals could talk? You’ll need to pick something with enough scope for at least 7 different stories. I’ve already got mine in mind. I’m looking forward to this week :). Even though I’m not going to get to it until next week…

Diary Challenge: 21st-27th Feb 2011

Yes, it’s late, so just a quicky:

Monday 21st Feb: Description Challenge

Let’s have a villain doing something villainous. I was watching Warlock and forgot how nasty he was!

Tuesday 22nd Feb: Dialogue Challenge

Portray a first meeting through Dialogue.

Wednesday 23rd Feb: Scene Challenge

Write a scene in the 2nd person about anything. I wrote a whole short story in the 2nd person once. Message me if you want to read it!

Thursday 24th Feb: Dream Challenge

Dreams again 🙂

Friday 25th Feb: Poetry Challenge

Let’s have a haiku. It’s short and sweet and I’ve really been struggling with the poems. I think from next week I’ll be ditching them for a little while.

Saturday 26th Feb: Flash Fiction Challenge

Write a piece of Flash Fiction in which the main character is not human. They can be anything else.

Sunday 27th Feb: Pot Luck – Stream of Consciousness

Free writing. The first word is ‘Random’. Go!

Next week I’m breaking the format and trying something different. I’ve got an idea I want to run with. Check back to see what it is!

Diary Challenge: 14th-20th Feb 2011

It’s Valentine’s Day <3. Aw. So since I have failed to plan (again) let’s have a nice easy romance/love themed week.

Monday 14th Feb – Description Challenge

Describe love.

Seriously! OK, to put it in context, you have a character who is in love and they are trying to describe how they are feeling. See, it’s not so bad.

Tuesday 15th Feb – Dialogue Challenge

Valentine’s day isn’t all chocolates and roses for some people, so if Monday left you with a bitter taste in your mouth hopefully you’ll feel better about today’s challenge. I would like the conversation to be between a couple who are breaking up.

Wednesday 16th Feb – Scene Challenge

From relationships ending to new beginnings! In this scene a character will profess a long held secret flame for another character, but will their affection be returned? Is the object of their affection even present in the scene?

Thursday 17th Feb – Dream Challenge

Write something inspired by a dream you had this week. I had loads of mad dreams last night! Unfortunately I’ll have forgotten them all by the time I’m on this challenge…

Friday 18th Feb – Poetry Challenge

Love poem? Nah, too obvious. How about an anti-love poem then. You can decide what that means to you. I have a few ideas for mine :).

Saturday 19th Feb – Flash Fiction

I love a bit of romance in my Flash Fiction, so I don’t want to be too prescriptive about what this week’s FF challenge is going to be. I’d just like something with a little bit of romance. If you need a title you can use ‘First Date’, but you don’t have to. I’m not going to!

Sunday 20th Feb – Potluck Challenge

Free writing! You must start with ‘The kiss…” and go anywhere you want from there.

That’s all for now!

Week 1: New character week

It’s time I started posting some of what this diary challenge is helping me produce! I’m not going to spend this whole year apologising for my writing being rough and crap so I will just warn you the once: this stuff was all written with very little planning and has been barely edited. Don’t expect to see polished stuff from this diary challenge. Also, everything is limited to an A5 page so some things will seem rushed at the end. This is all for practice and anything good enough for polishing will get made shiny later. There, you’ve been warned.

I was going to do a big ‘January roundup’ post, but I thought that might get too long very quickly, so over the next few days I’ll just do a week at at time.

If we can remember that far back, the challenge for the first week was to come up with a new character and write some stuff for them. The character I created for the purpose is Indigo Avalon. Don’t ask me where the name came from, my characters tend to name themselves and I don’t always agree with their choices at first but it usually works out for them.

I started out with the idea of the Enchantress type character from Beauty and the Beast – the old witch who tests people’s character and transforms into a beautiful woman before cursing them – and decided I was going to have a witch who could change forms. Here’s the description I wrote for her on the Monday:

They say she has two faces. One is thin, deeply etched with the lines of ages, obsured by ragged silver-white hair that’s thick and tangled as string. From deep set sockets two mismatched eyes peer out, the right one sharp and yellow, the left white and unseeing but yet seems to always focus on you. She walks hunched forward with the aid of an ancient twisted walking stick with a crow’s head carved on the top. She wears a black robe and matching shoes with curls on their toes, but as the fabric shifts with her movement hints of colour below are revealed. She likes to wear purple and tangerine, and tights with bright stripes. On her long, boney fingers she has rings housing colourful stones that are nothing more than cheap glass, but she wears them with pride. If you ask about them she will give you a toothless grin, but say nothing.

They say she has two faces. The other is lovely and youthful. Ivory skin framed with sleek raven hair. Her straight fringe falls in front of her golden cat-like eyes when she forgets to pin it back. She paints her full lips purple and kisses the boys on their cheeks just to leave violet smears. She wears short skirts with knee length socks and too big workman’s boots polished to a shine. She never wears coats with sleeves. She likes to show off the tattoos on her arms, mostly celtic symbols, except for her wrists which she’ll hide with leather bands. Her right bares a cat and her left a crow. Why does she hide those two? Rumour says sometimes they’re not there and she fears their absence will be noticed. She owns a pointed hat that she likes to wear to parties sometimes. She jokes that she’s a witch. If you don’t believe her she’ll pull a twisted stick from her colourful bag and cast a spell. She’ll laugh if you flinch, and maybe give you a kiss. She’ll claim it’s just a novelty pencil.

They say she has two faces. No one knows which one is real.

After I wrote this I decided that witches in Indigo’s universe actually have three forms they can take: maiden, mother and crone. They can also have a familiar for each form. Indigo has lost her Mother form, and the novel idea I had for her largely revolves around her trying to get it back and defeat the warlock who took it from her. She has two familiars, a cat referred to only as Miss Kitty (if you think that’s a direct reference to Willow and Tara’s Miss Kitty Fantastico you’d be right), who is aligned to her crone form and has been her companion since very early in her life, and Corvain the crow, a much newer acquistion who has been bonded to her maiden form under questionable circumstances that make Miss Kitty doubt his trustworthiness. In fact, this was the topic of the conversation I wrote between Indigo and Miss Kitty on the Tuesday :).

On Wednesday the scene I did was of parents’ night at Indigo’s school. It doesn’t totally suck, so I’ll just post it:

“Mrs Avalon?” Indigo’s teacher looked unsure of the old lady sitting in front of him. Most of the students had accompanied their parents. That wasn’t an option for Indy.

“Yes,” Indigo replied with a toothless grin. She could have easily got dentures for her elderly persona, but she enjoyed the reactions she got.

“You’re Indigo’s…”

“Grandmother,” she helpfully filled in. The teacher looked relived. “Her parents are no longer with us.” Technically true.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Perhaps that’s why she’s been struggling since she moved here.”

“Oh yes, it’s been very hard on my little Indy,” she commented, trying to contain a smirk as she spoke about herself.

“She seems smart enough. She’s great at history. She’s just not motivated, she never does homework and she’s having difficulty socialising with her peers.”

Indigo tried to look like she was taking his concerns seriously. Of course she had trouble socialising. Teenagers were entertaining enough with their dramas but they weren’t on her level.

“She seems to…intimidate them.”

He wanted to say ‘frighten’. It was okay. Indy didn’t think of herself as scary. Well, not her teenage self anyway, but she could see why her teacher would think that. Not many sixteen year olds had tattoos.

“I think she would benefit from counseling,” he went on. Indigo tensed. That could be a problem. She didn’t want the school meddling in her life that much.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” she said, raising her twisted walking stick to channel the spell. A blank expression crossed the teacher’s face, then he shook his head.

“Nothing, Mrs Avalon,” he said. “Everything is fine with Indigo. Thank you for coming.”

And that’s pretty much what I did for the first week of the challenge! The flash fic mostly sucked, but it was about a young man who wakes up to find that Indigo has turned him into a toy racecar driver as punishment for nearly running her over on a pedestrian crossing, and the less said about the poem the better. Seriously.

Diary Challenge: 7th-13th Feb 2011

We won’t talk about how far behind I am. Seriously, it’s bad, but the sewing project of doom is finished so I know I can catch up. I’m also going to do a post with a summary of what I produced last month and a couple of extracts, just as soon as I finish last month’s challenges. Ahem. Anyway, I’ve just got back from the SFX Weekender in sunny Cambersands. We all had a really great time and since I haven’t had a chance to plan the challenges for this week I’m going to be inspired by one of the author panels I attended. The title was ‘Dual Britannia: Creating Alternate Englands’. So this week is going to be about creating an alternate history setting and writing in it. 2 guesses as to what the Monday challenge is…

Monday 7th Jan – Description Challenge

Pick a location you want to work with and come up with an alternate version of it. Describe some of the key features. London was very popular amongst writers at the weekend, but don’t feel constrained. I think it would be nice to see an alternate Manchester, or maybe a Kendal. Or maybe you want to stick with the place you live.

Tuesday 8th Jan – Dialogue Challenge

Now you have an alternate society I want a conversation involving one of its leaders. Anything from President of the United States to head of the parish council goes. It can be about anything and with anyone you like, but it will probably be more interesting if they’re talking about some kind of challenge the society you’ve created is facing.

Wednesday 9th Jan – Scene Challenge

You are to write a scene of a book set in your alternate reality. Not just any scene – the first scene. The challenge is to decide what info about your setting you’re going to give the reader right away and to think about how you’re going to introduce them and still have an interesting scene with some action. No, you’re not allowed to write one of those prologues that’s just an info dump about your setting. That’s cheating :P. You have to have a character in the scene.

Thursday 10th Jan – Dream Challenge

Dream a little dream of me. Yeah, you know the drill. Next!

Friday 11th Jan – Poetry Challenge

Let’s make this one a bit different. Pick any poem you like and rewrite as if it were written in your alternate history. I have no idea if this will work at all, but I’d suggest approaching it by searching for poems that contain an element that you have changed in your reality. If it doesn’t work at all, stuff it, just write a dirty limerick instead :).

Saturday 12th Jan – Flash Fiction

Write a piece of Flash Fiction using your setting. If you didn’t get an idea for something you fancy doing during the week you may write something involving a crime. Maybe something interesting is against the law in your setting :).

Sunday 13th Jan – Potluck Challenge

It would be easy to say ‘hey, let’s plan a novel in our new setting!’ but I haven’t even done my vamp plan yet, and plans take a lot of thought, so let’s just unwind and take a breather with some more free writing this week. Use the word ‘Alternate’ as the prompt, but it doesn’t have to be about alternate realities.

And we’re done! I just made that up on the fly. Phew. Better start planning the rest of the month now.

Diary Challenge: 31st Jan-6th Feb 2011

I’m still making Jedi costumes and I’m still behind. I’ve only got as far as describing my vampire character, so I’ll be brief as I don’t have much time! This week is…

Special Guest Challenge Week!

Yes, I’m taking a break from the usual format and taking a week long challenge from hubby Markie. Markie has decreed that we must write 7 different scenes about 7 different characters – different genres, settings and possibly species – all performing the same action. The action is simple – they’re all having dinner. Oh, and one of them has to be a dragon.

There you go. 7 days, 7 characters, 7 dinners, it’s like extreme Come Dine With Me. But without the cash prize.

Now back to my vampires…

Diary Challenge: 24th-30th Jan 2011

Oh heck, it’s Sunday already and I haven’t posted the challenges for next week. Truth be told, I’m rather behind since I’m currently trying to make my own Jedi costume and I’ve never touched a sewing machine before, so I’ve got a bit of catching up to do, but I have prepared the upcoming challenges and here they are:

It’s Vampire week!

Monday 24th Jan – Description Challenge

Having read the first 2 books in the infamous Twilight Saga I thought we should see if we could do better and have some fun with vampires this week, so challenge the first is to create and describe your own vampire character. You can use them for the rest of the challenges this week but you don’t have to. You can have as many vamps as you like.

Tuesday 25th Jan – Dialogue Challenge

This week the dialogue is a monologue. Internal, external, and moody Bella-esque 1st person prose are all acceptable. The speaker/thinker/brooder must either BE a vampire or vampires must be the subject of their soliloquy.*

*ok, technically monologues and soliloquies are not the same. You can write either!

Wednesday 26th Jan – Scene Challenge

The subject of the scene is vampires vs. <insert foe of choice>. Vampires vs Werewolves. Vampires vs Ninjas. Vampires vs Robots. Wait, I think they did that one on Buffy…Anyway, pick a foe for your vampire and pit them against each other in a battle to the death, a battle of wits, a battle of mario carts, whatever takes your fancy.

Thursday 27th Jan – Dream Challenge

Write something based on a dream, as usual. I might change this challenge next month. Remembering interesting dreams is getting hard.

Friday 28th Jan – Poetry Challenge

I am and will always be Team Spike. Spike aka William the Bloody…aka William the Bloody Awful if you’re not a fan of his poetry. But a secret poet he was, so for my favourite vampire Spike the poetry challenge this week is to write a poem by a vampire.

Saturday 29th Jan – Flash Fiction

You may write any vampire related story you wish, but if you want more of a prompt than that you’re welcome to use the same scenario I’m using, which is the awakening of a new vampire :).

Sunday 30th Jan – Potluck Challenge – Story planning

There’s a lot of vampire books out there right now, so this is your chance to see if you can do any better and plan one of your own! Come up with a longer story idea and make some notes on it. An no, the vampires don’t have to be all romantic and tortured. It’s ok if you want to make the little bloodsuckers the bad guys for a change.

That’s it for vampire week. Next week we have a special guest challenge from my hubby! See you then.

Diary Challenge: 17th-23rd Jan 2011

This week has been an interesting week. So far I’ve had an eavesdropping shadow, a woman hiding a child from its evil overlord father, and the worst possible emo poem ever. I also revisited the scene of a short story* I wrote a few years back when my ‘decay’ scene started turning into a library so now my Flash Fiction piece is going to have to be a little follow-up to that. I’m still a day behind on this week’s challenges but I will catch up when Ben has gone to bed tonight. I might post something I wrote, but Markie is going to have to bribe me to make it the emo poem! His is way better than mine.

Anyhoo, on to the challenges for next week. Markie is coming home from the conference so I’ve been inspired by homey and house related things.

Monday 17th Jan – Description Challenge

This is straight forward description practice. You have to describe something in your house in as much detail as you can, preferably using all the senses. I’d stick with the traditional 5, though bonus points if you can find a way to work the extra ones in!

Tuesday 18th Jan – Dialogue Challenge

Write a conversation with 2 or more participants. At least one participant must be in the home of another participant for some reason. It can be any reason. They could be a guest, or maybe an intruder or a prisoner. There’s quite a lot of scope for fun with this one, I think :).

Wednesday 19th Jan – Scene Challenge

In this scene someone is returning home from a long trip. How are they feeling? Has their home changed since they left it? Have they changed? Where were they for so long? All this and more on only one page!

Thursday 20th Jan – Dream Challenge

Write something based on a dream. Last week I dreamed I was a wizard who was a weird hybrid between Willy Wonka and the Wizard of Oz, and I found a school for witches where the pupils where all being held against they will by the evil headmistress. I wonder what my subconscious has got for me this week.

Friday 21st Jan – Poetry Challenge

Sticking with the home theme, either write a poem that uses homes or houses as a metaphor for something else, or write a poem that uses something else as a metaphor for homes or houses. Hmm, yes, I think that makes sense…

Saturday 22nd Jan – Flash Fiction

Just a title this time. Your title is ‘Moving Day’. Write a piece of flash fiction that fits it.

Sunday 23rd Jan – Potluck Challenge – Stream of Consciousness

Let’s have some more free writing. This time there is no starting word, but the prompt is ‘Doorways’.

That’s all for the challenges!

*Ah yes, the short story. This picked up a semi-finalist place in the SFX Pulp Fiction contest a few years back and it’s the only thing I’ve written that I now consider finished. I’m not posting it on my blog but if you know me and you want to read it let me know and I’ll email it to you :).

Diary Challenge: 10th-16th Jan 2011

New character week has been pretty good for me! I came up with a weird new character and learned all kinds of things about her by doing the writing challenges. I’m ready with my novel plan for Sunday and I feel like I’ve got something I can write about for NaNoWriMo this year already! I’m really feeling the creative juices flowing. Now if I could just think of a flash fiction piece for this now terribly complicated character I’ve created.

But lets take a break and look forward to next week. My beloved hubby is going to Florida for a conference next week and leaving Ben and I home alone :(. So this week the challenges are going to be a touch on the dark side. Whaa haa haa. Here’s what I’ve come up with if you’re playing at home:

Monday 10th Jan – Description Challenge

Describe a place in a state of decay or rot. You’ll be using it later in the week!

Tuesday 11th Jan – Dialogue Challenge

Write a conversation with 2 or more participants. The catch is that one of them can’t be heard by the others. You decide why and you decide if they know the others can’t hear them.

Wednesday 12th Jan – Scene Challenge

This scene can be about anything and can have any number of characters. There’s just one rule: no talking. No dialogue of any kind. They can’t write notes to each other either. That’s not in the spirit of the challenge :).

Thursday 13th Jan – Dream Challenge

Write something based on a dream. I just hope it’s better than last week when the only dream I could remember was about a new karaoke trend where the computer picks a song for you to sing based on your answers to a personality quiz. Weird.

Friday 14th Jan – Poetry Challenge

‘It’s tragic. It’s emotional. No one understands me and the only way I can truly express myself is through my depressing emo poetry.’

I think anyone who wrote poetry as a teen wrote at least one of these poems and thought it was a work of literary genius at the time. Let your emo side out now and write just one more of these lovely pieces.

If you’re too upbeat for emo you have permission to write an Elmo poem instead.

Saturday 15th Jan – Flash Fiction

Remember that decaying place you did on Monday? Use it as the setting for your Flash Fiction. It can be about anything that fits.

Sunday 16th Jan – Potluck Challenge – Stream of Consciousness

Free writing! This week we’re starting with the word ‘Dark’.

And that’s it for now!