Writing Flash with Cat Rambo!

Since Armadillocon I've had a hard time TAKING time to write (I so want to say "finding" the time to write, but there's no such thing as finding time, you can only take it).

I won't roll through all the usual excuses, let's just say summer is awesome when it comes to trips and out-of-town visitors and camps and camping and swimming, but much more challenging when it comes to finding the peace and quiet I need to lay words down on the page. I can't wait for the first day of school and the return of our more established schedule.

I've got plenty of story ideas bouncing around but with less time to develop them, most days I resort to writing exercises to get keep myself in fighting shape, and that's fine except that they tend to generate MORE ideas which  cry for even more attention...

I am still working on my process for getting stories from idea and draft to revised, focused and finished works. It's a lot of steps to juggle, but I guess I'll just keep juggling and hope that one day I'll figure out how to stop dropping the balls.

I signed up for a tutorial with Cat Rambo to work on writing in general and flash in particular. Cat was one of my pros at the ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop and we got to visit a little bit at the con. I think she'll be a great teacher, and I love that she offers a variety of classes online.

If I had six weeks to burn I would apply to go to Clarion or Odyssey. I don't think I'll even be able to get a single week for Viable Paradise or NASA's Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop in the next couple years (maybe someday). But that's okay because as much as I kvetch about squeezing writing into my life things are pretty awesome with my little bug-loving garden gnomes.

So, Cat's class is a great fit. And now that she's a World Fantasy Award nominee I feel like I got in on the ground floor!

Carried on this wave of frustration-driven enthusiasm, I am beefing up my commitment to wild, possibly irresponsible, creation and am signing on for the September Story A Day marathon.

I hope by the end of September to have 30 flash fiction stories. If even a fraction of them are decent then I'll consider it a roaring success. I promise to post at least a couple here next month. Wish me luck!