On Wednesday night, I attended my very first Writing Race, hosted by the Australian Writers’ Marketplace Online (of which I am a member). This is a one-hour, self directed writing session where goals are stated at the beginning of the session. This was the first time I had managed to join a session, though I have been planning to for some time.
My plan for the night was to get a start on a new short story The Feline Factor. I have 2000 words to finish this one… I think! Nope, it was 1500-3000 words. Bonus! I had done a little research on superstitions about felines and on differing cultures views on them, which has been bubbling away in the background for almost a week now. For the night, I was hoping to get a rough plan of the plot and possibly some paragraphs down.
An hour later, I managed over five hundred words ( after editing about 75 along the way), one fact checking and three gratuitous uses of the thesaurus! A new character decided to walk out of the fog by the second paragraph (inconsiderate!) and the feline remained a little shy for three paragraphs longer than I had originally envisaged. But I am now armed with a partial map of the Thames dockside and a duffel bag smelling of fish.
All in all, it was a useful exercise as I have to get that elusive opening scene out of my head before the rest will flow. I am planning on attending next week’s race as well. Good habits, an’ all that.