Kaye Dacus's Blog, page 2

November Challenge Day 28 | #nanowrimo

When he returned from the kitchen with the mugs of hot tea, he found her stretched out on the chaise end of the sectional sofa. She was wrapped in the blanket like a burrito, her pink-socked feet sticking out of the bottom like penguin flippers. He set the mugs on the coffee table and carefully […]

November Challenge Day 25 | #nanowrimo

2. Every year at the stroke of midnight on November June 30, something important happens. A watched watch watches the watcher. And mocks her. June 30 had finally come again. Eighteen hours until midnight. Seventeen and a half. At least work would be a distraction for the next several hours. She’d thought, dreamed, prepared for […]

November Challenge Day 22 | #nanowrimo

4. Rewrite these characters into a fairytale. Royal Navy Beauty & the Beast Retelling When the Peace of Amiens goes into effect (1802), the admiral sends his young-adult daughters from Portugal back to family living in England aboard their Captain-brother’s ship. While at sea, a freak accident starts a fire in which the First Lieutenant, […]

November Challenge Day 18 | #nanowrimo

Writing Prompts 1. His or her high school cafeteria—but one thing is very different 2. Every year at the stroke of midnight on November 30, something important happens. 3. A character can not tell the truth, even when they want to. 4. Rewrite these characters into a fairytale. 5. There’s a legend of a buried […]

November Challenge Day 17 | #nanowrimo

I want to write so that it makes me FEEL the way I do from the “Avengers, assemble” scene through to the end of Endgame. I used to be able to write with emotion. But now it just feels dry and hollow. So I have to figure out how to tap into my emotions and […]

November Challenge Day 12 |#nanowrimo

Mac set the bowl on the table in front of Mrs. R. As soon as her employer picked up her spoon, Mac returned to the stove where she could watch without being quite so obvious. Mac had never made chicken and dumplings before—and rarely had she ever cooked something with the recipe’s proprietor sitting across […]

November Challenge Day 7 | #nanowrimo

“Next time you come into work service”—the restaurant floor manager’s gaze ran the length of her disapprovingly—“lose the cosplay look.” Mac swallowed back her feeling of embarrassed disappointment over the harsh tone. While her black pants and white shirt were nearly identical to every other server’s, she’d known her retro hair and makeup would stood […]

November Challenge Day 6 | #nanowrimo

It’s just a first draft, and the important thing is that I’m writing and shouldn’t be worrying about or even thinking about how pretty much everything I’ve written here so far will end up on the virtual editing room floor. Right now, I just need to let myself word vomit onto the page and wait […]

November Challenge Day 5 | #nanowrimo

Something was happening. Mac struggled against the confusion and darkness and reached for the thing that seemed to be the root cause of the perturbance. A loud clatter brought her closer to a sense of reasonality. Forcing her concrete-laden lids open a crack, she rolled over, leaned over the side of the bed, and picked […]

November Challenge Day 4 |#nanowrimo

Karsten stood just beyond the doorway, numb. After years of nearly silent melancholy from his mother, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing coming from the kitchen. Chatting and laughing like her old self. Mom had rarely even cracked a smile for her husband and sons since the accident landed her in the wheelchair. Yet […]