Category: Writing

Musings (Flash Fiction)

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

National Flash-Fiction Day 2016Apparently it’s National Flash fiction day, so I thought I’d share a little something I wrote.

I am old, now. My days of running wild are behind me. My body is stiff and tired, but I’m happy. I’ve lived a thousand lives, which is more than anyone could ask for.

Starting out, I was daft, like any young thing. I had no standing, but I had no cares.

The energy in my bones lasted me many years, through many incarnations; from running around my mother’s feet, to running from home to home as I passed through many pairs of loving hands that could only keep me for a time. Eventually, I ran the streets. Those days weren’t easy, but they were numbered.

Then one day I caught sight of you and everything changed – again. I was welcomed in, to join you in your domain. To rule over it by your side. We fought – oh, how we fought – but we played, too. We had fun.

Then you were gone.

Too soon. I always thought I’d be first

That’s when I really understood that some things don’t last forever, and some things always will. You’re not coming back, but I’m thankful for the years you gave me. The home I have, because of you.

This place is where I’ll end my days.

I am old now, but I am happy, as I lay in my basket by the fire, looking into the eyes of our owners. They have no idea that I have so many thoughts and feelings. Memories.

They think I’m just a dumb old dog, but God bless their ignorance.

Writing Review – May 2016

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Writing UpdateAs I said in a recent post, I have started work on a new novel. My plan is to put together a first draft of it during the next round of Camp NaNoWriMo, next month.

In the meantime, though, my writing goal for June is 10,000 words, same as last month.

I didn’t meet my May goal, but I did write a total of 7,000 – made up of:

  • 7 Blog Posts
  • 3 Poems
  • 1 piece of Fan Fiction
  • And drafted chapter outlines of the new novel idea, mentioned above

I also edited one other piece and reformatted a lot of my back catalog.

Works Submitted: 3 poems to one journal, and a piece of flash fiction to another.

If you want to read about what work I did for clients during the month of May, click here.

New Ideas to Replace the Old

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

No sooner had I pitched out a boatload of ideas that were only weighing me down* did I get the brand new idea for a novel. But not just the general concept – several chapter outlines, a title, a log line, and a synopsis, too!

I know I’m trying hard not to start anything new, right now, but this story has really grabbed me, and I’m scared to miss the opportunity, so I’m going to run with it for a while.

With all of that in mind, I also had another idea for a story, and this second idea I am not chasing. I will put it down here just to get it out of my mind, however. As always, feel free to resurrect it and make it your own.

So, here’s the idea: what if there was an alien invasion of earth, but the aliens didn’t come for us? What if the aliens had, in fact, no interest in humans one way or another but had come with the intention of wiping out something else? This is the part of the story I haven’t got worked out. I don’t know what the ‘something else’ might be. Maybe mosquitoes, or cockroaches, or lint. Maybe tacos.

I want to see how that changes the standard tropes of us going to war with them (aliens, I mean, not tacos… though, maybe that could- no. No more plot bunnies!); the standard thing of always having our own race at the center of everything.

Someone write that story. I dare you!

*read about that here.

The Idea Graveyard – Part One

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

The Idea Graveyard - Part One (Blog Image)A long long time ago*, in a corner of the internet far far away**, I said that the new plan was to clear out some ideas for projects I know I’m never going to finish from the back of my mind, where they only serve as distractions from the real projects I should be focusing on. Well, I’ve been semi-successful in this, so far, but I want to clear out some more, and I’m going to do that right here, right now. Consider this post a kind of idea graveyard. And hey, if you like the sound of any of my abandoned ideas, then feel free to resurrect them, by all means. I’d love to hear from you if you’re inspired by anything below.

Ideas Currently Being Ditched:

  • A Doctor Who fanfic telling the story of what Rose and Faux!Ten got up to in their alternate timeline
  • A different Doctor Who fanfic in which the sonic screwdriver is a massive euphemism (gasp!)
  • A Christian Romance novel entitled If God Used Computers (…don’t ask. That really was a long time ago.)
  • Three separate Christian non-fiction books – one about dating, one about legalism/balance, and one about self care
  • A Christian children’s picture book
  • A book of religious poetry (is there a theme here or is it just me?)
  • A sci-fi short story that seemed original when it first occurred to me but is actually a trope that’s been done to death by writers a lot better than me
  • A fantasy short story that seemed really original to me, at the time (slightly different theme emerging over this way)
  • A book of animal/nature photography
  • A Buffy fanfic which is essentially a eulogy for a character no one remembers or cares about, from the perspective of a character I can’t stand

Phew. I thought that’d be hard, but it was actually a relief to put all those drafts in my scrap folder.

Onwards and upwards, pigeons!

*February 2015, to be exact
**This blog post right here

Writing Review – April 2016

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Camp NaNoWriMo GraphHere it is: my first monthly round up of what I wrote during the last thirty days, (as promised here).

The goal was 17,000 words, and I made it to 9,000 including:

  • Five thousand words of fan fiction (across three separate fics)
  • One thousand seven hundred words of a short story
  • One thousand five hundred words in blog posts (four separate posts*)
  • Eight hundred words towards my novel

And this is the part why I tell you why it’s okay that I didn’t meet my goal: *takes deep breath* …I have tossed out the most recent draft of my first novel, replotted, and am starting again from scratch.

For maybe the fifteenth time.

Yes, seriously.

Am I crazy? Probably. But I’m doing it anyway. I swear one day this thing will be finished, and I will be happy with it.

’till then, I’m setting the goal for next month at 10,000 words.

 

*I’m counting posts for this blog and the blog over on my other website, but not the blog posts I wrote for clients.

A Literary Audit

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Literary Audit 2016The tax year just having ended, I’m taking stock of my business from the past twelve months – doing accounts and such – but, seeing as how my business basically boils down to a lot of words in a lot of places, I thought it was time to crunch some numbers on those, too.

I’ve done this before, but the results of that literary audit weren’t very organized and are now massively out of date.

But what exactly is a literary audit? I hear you ask.

Well, it’s the process of looking hard at everything you’ve written/created/had published, and putting together some facts and figures based on what you find. The purpose of this is two-fold: to see how far you’ve come, and to give you a better idea of where you might want to go with your work in future. You might find, for example, that you have written a lot of short stories, but that you’ve only ever submitted a tenth of them to journals, blogs, or competitions. Knowing that leaves you with the obvious next step of going out and making a fresh round of submissions.

SIDE NOTE: While I’m on the topic of submissions, have you heard about Submittable? It’s a website that lets you submit your work to relevant publications quickly and easily. I can’t recommend it highly enough (read more about it here).

How does one conduct a literary audit? I used a spreadsheet with several tabs, and way too many midnight hours.  Continue reading →

Productivity, Procrastination, Deadlines, and Goals

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Before I get onto the main point of this blog post, I really recommend watching this YouTube video about procrastination. (Yes, I mean that all irony aside.)

I agree with the conclusions of the video – that there are no such people as non-procrastinators, and that procrastination falls into two main types: short term (in which there are set deadlines) and indefinite (in which there are not).

I suffer from the latter.

Now, that isn’t exactly news to me, but what has changed is my approach to the issue.  Continue reading →

NaNoWriMo

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

NaNoWriMo Participant BadgeCurrently, I’m taking part in National Novel Writing Month. I’m not sure how many years I’ve taken part, now – the NaNoWriMo website says it’s five, but I’m sure it’s more. You see, sometimes I plan to do NaNo, and I sign up, and then I just… don’t, for whatever reason. And on those occasions I usually go back and erase the fact that I ever tried.

So, yeah, it’s probably more than five years since I’ve been at this, and some of those years have been really good, and I’ve finished and everything. (By this point I’m assuming you either already know what NaNo is, or have gone to look it up, so I won’t bore you with the details of what qualifies as finishing or whatnot.)

I guess the point of this post is just to document the fact that I’m trying again, and that I seem to be succeeding this year.

So, hopefully, by the end of 2015 I will have the first draft of my second novel. I don’t know about you, but I find that rather exciting.

I fought the narrative (and the narrative won)

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

TweetsSix Thirty-Six AM. I’ve been up all night again, urging myself to work on the never-ending rewrites of my novel and resenting every moment of it. I do this a lot and it’s now beyond a joke. Well, as Joyce Summers once said, it ends now. I’ve found the problem and, spoiler alert, it’s me: I’m flogging a dead horse.

As much as I’m loath to admit it, parts of the story were simply dead. The plot was weak and lifeless in places and, now I’ve stopped trying to wrestle life into them, over the course of multiple mind-numbing re-writes, Writing is enjoyable again. Huzzah!

(Remember that time I said writing fanfic was a million times easier than writing “original” fiction? Well, I still kinda stick by that point. But I also now realize that my original story was way more harder than it should ever have been.)

I have ripped out* the sections that weren’t working and now I’m left with a much shorter document that’s even further from being finished, but one that’s also more likely to be finished. Honestly, I feel like a weight has been lifted. My novel is no longer my burden, but is my baby again. (That probably sounds weird to anyone who’s never tried writing a book, and maybe even to some people who have.)

Anyway, I guess the purpose of this post is just to document my breakthrough. If you’ve had similar issues, feel free to tell me about it in the comment section.

I’m gonna go write some new chapters for my novel now. (I typed that with a smile on my face. You have no idea what a change that is.)

Good morning, everyone!

*When I say ripped out, what I mean is that I’ve removed them from the Word document, and placed them in a completely different one. They shall remain there, in the scrap folder, probably until the novel is complete and I am 100% sure I don’t want/need to go through them one last time. I’ve been informed this is the right way to go about such things.