
Editor Emeritus
Posts: 3244
Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM
Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA)
Re: Voting for Flash Challenge: March 2017
Daniel Johnson wrote:So you really put a lot of time crafting a story. You allow your inspiration to come from your sensory experience around you such as your wife cleaning or the music you choose to listen to or maybe how you feel and you draw from that.
Also, the story sometimes winds up different than you originally planned.
When I write, if I outline and figure out everything before I write, I don't write. It stops being fun, so I stop writing it. It strangles the creativity, but on the other side of it, you have to know where you want to wind up or you won't get there. Yes, you might not hit the exact mark you were aiming at with the plot, but you will be in that neighborhood.
For me, it's a delicate balance of preplanned and seat of my pants dreaming to forge a story. It keeps it fun and achieves the goal I set when I started it, which is rewarding.
And you break up the scenes when you work on them and work on one for awhile and then put it down to rest from it and gain a fresh perspective next time.
It's a little less structured than that. Usually, when I actually sit down to write I go until I can't think of anything else, not because I deliberately chose to stop. Yes, I definitely wait to edit until a different day--I think that's vital for a good story edit--but usually I write until I'm out of gas on it. Now, my subconscious works on it all the while I'm not and I think a lot during the drive, but that's brainstorming and daydreaming with the plot, not actually writing.
First, I've learned from this and so thank you. Second, you really had to make a big effort to put this kind of time into your story, with all the other wrap up work your doing as editor.
I'm really honored.
I'm glad I could help you. Editing flash and shorts together now that Kate stepped down is a lot of work. Heck, shorts is a lot of work in itself, and I have to admit I'm looking forward to after the May issue, when none of this is my responsibility anymore. Until then, I'm just plugging away as I can.
Anyway, I have to make a flash index page for the next issue. Later!