At left is a ducted-fan propelled sleigh from the hands of Henri Coanda in 1911 owned by a Russian Grand Duke. Note the complete absence of shielding for the occupants.
Hard to get a girl in it for a date regardless of how fun it looks.
So, back from the gulag. The season ran up on me and the whole election cycle snowballed into "civic wonderland." I'm only an amateur at this. Professionals do better at managing their time. They also don't hold down some other day gig while they're politicking. No - I wasn't the candidate. Rest easy. No Putsch this year.
Onto the writing. I missed the Insecure Writers this month (second in a row). I probably will be thrown out. It's a long sad list of organizations who have this distinction. Maybe there's a pattern?
Anyway - holiday writing.
Challenge
This season before things get crazy, some writer friends at I are going to write our Christmas (or Holiday) stories. Literary, crime, suspense, commercial, and historical are all represented genres. The goal is a short story of around 3000 words with a distinct holiday element - namely that the story wouldn't work without the holiday association - in the style of our normal writing.Yes, everyone is busy. Few of my writer friends participate in NaNoWriMo. Sure, we can pound out the text of a draft in a furious pace; but, we're not to the point where we can do quality work on demand. We're working on it.
Anyway, short stories to exchange with one another. It's a fun bit of diversion from the recent doldrums and the real need to get the twisty-plot and suspense things going in my own writing. Too bloody linear and too little of that of interest. Short stories whet the knife. It sounds fun enough to hold interest for a couple weeks to write, revise, and polish.
I'm proposing a watering hole as the "gift" exchange. Everyone can use a little cheer during the holidays.
So, why not play along. Holiday story exchange. It's what writers have for gifts, anyway. Stop giving away Bic pens this year. Write a holiday story with me.
I have to go work on the draft of mine. I can't be late with the story.
I've got to choke a reindeer on a lump of coal. No fair - I said it first.
2 comments:
That's one scary-looking sleigh!
I'm always amazed by short story writers. So much harder for me to write short than it is to write long. I wrote a short for an anthology last summer and it about killed me...
Crime fiction Christmas Story. What's not to love?
My wife did make a couple of disparaging remarks about my involvement in the unfortunate demise of Blitzen.
"Nobody wants to kill a reindeer," she said.
It's opening season for deer here today. Shots have been ringing our around our house since dawn. I found her perspective on reindeer preservation amusing.
I shouldn't have laughed so hard, perhaps.
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