Linda Maye Adams's Blog, page 28

Great Challenge Story List

Here’s a quick guide to the Great Challenge stories (plus some extras).

Mask Pretty – historical science fiction
Teddy Bear Man – fantasy
Hunted – science fiction/fantasy
The Patron – science fiction
Spooner’s Cove – secondary world fantasy

a. Treacherous Cliff – flash fiction/ mystery (250 words)

b. Broken Agreement – science fiction (250 words)
Obsession – science fiction

Challenge Story 6

Update on Challenge Story 5

I thought this story was going to land in literary. But when I made first contact with the story, my muse was going, “Nope, nope, nope.”

It became a fantasy story. I’d bumped my deadline up to Friday to get it done. Tuesday, I was like, wait, if I do a push, I can get this done today!

But it was real commitment because I took that time from working on Book 1, so I had to tell myself that it HAD to be finished.

Coming up with a short story a week has special challenges:

You have to know how to come up with ideas.

I had to take a class in this to understand how to do it. I had the tendency to think the idea was a story born whole and not just something to get the story started.
You have to have some control of the inner critic.

It’s what’ll make you stall out and fail. And it’s a tough one. It shows up somewhere (mostly on Novel 1 this week). On Story 5, it kept telling me the story still had problems, and I shipped it anyway.
You got to have control of your calendar.

And I don’t mean just the available writing time. You also have to have control of your day job calendar. If you get pelted all day with emergencies, it’s hard to be creative. I had to really work on this (since COVID-19 started) and have really learned a lot about managing my calendar so that I don’t deplete all my mental energy before I break at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, I did a cover for Story 5. It’ll be in submission first, but covers are fun to do for the stories. I also did one for Novel 1.

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And Story 6…’

Not a clue, except that it will be spec fiction. This week’s was supposed to be for an anthology call, but I don’t think it quite met the requirements, so this one will be it.

Challenge Story 5

Review on Challenge Story 4

Story #4 is done! I pushed the completion date back to Friday because I missed a deadline on Book 1 That was “punishment”–by rearranging my schedule for October. The stories are due each Sunday and my soft deadline is Saturday. Now it’s Friday.

Maybe I’ll gradually push that back another day so I finish them faster.

I thought the story would involve a first contact, since that was in the original version, but it became more about the technology and its influence on creativity.

Story 5

The inspiration is a pink hat. I’m thinking historical, 1940s, because that was an era when men and women wore hats. The pink hat will belong to a woman, of course. Pink was one of the colors women liked to wear then (even though the iconic image is the woman in red).

I haven’t quite decided on genre yet, or really, what the story is about. But I’m thinking literary, or if not that, mystery, or even maybe a literary mystery.

Literary is an odd genre, and yeah, it is a genre. I think most new writers–and this was definitely something I did–gravitate to it because they don’t understand how to do genre writing.

Literary looks deceptively easy…make up a story about some characters.

Except it’s not.

Genre is about what the readers expect when they pick up the book. In a romance, we know we’re going to get happily ever after. In spec fiction, its the world. In literary, the readers want to see style.

I wouldn’t mind playing with style in a story and seeing what I come up with.

It’s also a protentional opportunity, since the paying magazines have top rates and awards can put me on the map.

Challenge Story #4

Story #3 is in the can.

One of the things I’ve started doing after I finish a story is a review. Not of the story itself, but of aspects in the process I can improve on.

From my experience with the second story, I decided to simply call this one Story 3 and figure out the title as I got near the end (“Hunted”). Very different story than the original one from now about four years ago.

Review:

I’m sticking with the naming convention. I even adapted it to the novels. That keeps my inner critic from fussing about the perfect title.

But the story still took about 8 hours to write, mostly with nailing down the first scene. I’m finding that’s a critical scene. If I get all the pieces in place, the rest of the story will happen. My goal is to get it down to seven hours (minus any final editing cleanup), just a small bite off the ultimate goal of about four hours.

I also did research in conjunction with writing, specifically on:

Names of characters
Trees and fall colors in the Cascades (left to my own devices, I would have thought there weren’t any. I grew up in Southern California. Fall didn’t have much of a color change).
Shades of color. I was working some creative muscles to use other names for colors besides black or white (and you can search for this online for ideas). I used white smoke for a color.

But I think I need to do that separate of the writing. It takes the wrong kind of mental energy for the story. It’s also not actually writing, so it can come off the time writing.

And Story 4…

Also mining from a past story, possibly for an anthology call. I’ve been doing something not in stories prior to the first one. I took an emotions class, so I’ve been working at adding emotions to the stories. Which is one of the reasons I was paying more attention to color choices.

Surprising fact: Most writers don’t add enough emotions to their stories.

That’s probably how writers end up frustrated at showing angry by having a character make a fist.

Story 4 will take creativity & travel to another planet.

There’s so much about creativity in the business world…book after book on how to be creative. People don’t know how anymore. What would creativity be like in the future?

The Great Story Challenge #3

Story #2 is in the can! At first contact, the mirror never made it into the story, but it turned into a very interesting story called “Teddy Bear Man.”

Story #3 is going to take an old idea that I want to revisit, non-werewolf weres and mash it into the prompt, Mayday.

It took a lot of effort to get this far, to feel like I could do one story a week for a year. It was scary when I signed up for it–costs money, so it’s a really commitment.

The last two times I tried something like this, it didn’t last more than a few weeks because of my day job. I’m a knowledge worker, and the industry hasn’t figured out how to handle work.

Most of the time, it was about putting out fires, so I was staying on reactive mode all day. That’s very exhausting. I fell of the other two challenges because the day job left my energy too low to muster any creativity.

Oddly, COVID-19 forced work to slow down, and that allowed me to figure out how to balance my time better so I’m not putting out fires non-stop.

I still have other things to learn on this, so we’ll see what happens!

Monsters, Movies, Mayhem

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Lights! Camera! Monsters?

Sometimes you go to the movies. And sometimes, the movies–and their monsters–come to you. At any moment, without notice, monsters once relegated to the screen become a reality. Aliens and demons, dragons and ghosts, werewolves, vampires, zombies, and seemingly ordinary people who are just plain evil.

Join award-winning authors Jonathan Maberry, Fran Wilde, David Gerrold, Rick Wilber and others for 23 all-new tales of haunted theaters, video gods, formidable demons, alien pizza, and delirious actors. Each story takes you to the silver screen with monstrous results.

Funny or grim, unsettling or cozy… You’ll laugh! You’ll sigh! You’ll scream!

Grab some popcorn—and good running shoes—and enjoy the show!

“The authors’ palpable love of supernatural cinema is infectious; horror fans won’t want to put this down.”—Publishers Weekly

“Linda Maye Adams’s especially delightful “Alien Pizza” features friendly aliens so enamored with low-budget monster movies that they make one of their own.” – Publisher’s Weekly

The Great Story Challenge #2

Story #1 is in the can (appropriate since it’s set in Hollywood in the 1940s). It’s science fiction, titled “Mask Pretty” and weighing in at about 3K. Fun to write. I had to restart the first scene three times before I got a feel for where it was supposed to go and the tone I wanted.

Add to that, I finished three chapters in my novel Superhero Portal. This is one of the skills I want to work on, juggling short stories and novels at the same time. That is planned for the end of October and is the first in a 3 book series.

Story #2 next on plate.

This time, I wanted something that dripped setting, so:

Historic houseAn antique mirrorGreedy relatives

My uncle, who owns a historic house, has told all kinds of horror stories about the lack of respect people have for history. They buy historic houses and then want to remodel and destroy the history. Makes you wonder about some people.

The Great Story Challenge #1

I’m probably crazy, but I signed up–and paid–for the Great Story Challenge. That’s one short story a week for the next year, in addition to working on my novel Superhero Portal.

The first short story is due next Sunday. That’s story is going to a submission to the Masks anthology (yeah, we all know what inspired that topic).

For anthologies like this, I start thinking of what the low hanging fruit is. You know, the first thing everyone else will think of submitting.

So, probably a lot of fantasy…that means I’m headed for science fiction.

Also probably a lot of superhero stories, since masks and superheroes is easy piece of fruit to grab. (And I was tempted; I’m working on a superhero novel called Superhero Portal).

Also a lot of dark stories because that’s been trending. I got mired down in dark after Desert Storm and I had to push my way out. I’m not going back to that for any reason. So a lighter story, hopefully fun.

It’ll be aliens – Hollywood – 1940s. That puts in the timeframe of Roswell.

Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle

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Check out my short story “Tidying Magic,” in the anthology X Marks the Spot, now featured in the 2020 Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle.

From the curator, Kevin J. Anderson:

Even in a pandemic, you can still go on an epic quest in your imagination. Your travel companions can stay socially distant as they charge across fantastic landscapes and battle dragons or mythic monsters…all while you stay safe at home with your e-reader.

I’ve curated a Truly Epic Fantasy StoryBundle, with thirteen legendary stories of swords, dragons, wizards, maps, and everything else you need for your quest. You name your own price, a portion of the proceeds goes to a good cause, and you support indie authors. One StoryBundle to rule them all!

A StoryBundle is a great way to find new books to read.

Chills and Wonder Storybundle

My short story Alien Pizza is out in Kevin J. Anderson’s anthology, Monsters, Movies, & Mayhem. Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review.

A Bookbub review said this about my story:

Then there was Alien Pizza by Linda Maye Adams that I sat back in my chair and thought, Now that was a fun ride.

https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/1232947736

But the book is now also available in the Chills and Wonder Storybundle. You can get a whole lot of fun reading!

This is only available for a few weeks, so grab your books now!

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