Next Steps

81,000 words

For your reading amusement, samples of six word short stories from various famous authors. Here, and here.

Is it just me, or did the genre scribblers over at Wired write a more generally entertaining batch than the more mainstream crowd at The Gaurdian. Maybe I was just won over by, "With bloody hands, I say goodbye." and "I'm dead. I've missed you. Kiss...?"

So I'm coming into Act 3, the endgame. The setting for the Big Final Showdown isn't at all where I'd pictured it, but it's too right to argue with. The bad guys are descending in their droves. The good guys sit placid and unaware. The hero who can save them all is off chasing a trail gone cold, never suspecting that she is among the hunted.

Or something.

At this point, I can see the big shape of where I'm headed but, as usual, not much of how I'm going to get there.

Fair enough, too. If I can't follow directions well enough to even follow an outline I write, I deserve what I get. Besides, I know I'll get there. I always do.

Several times back in the States, I hopped in the car with a vague destination and enough money for the gas, Mountain Dew and beef jerky to get me there. I moved to New Zealand with two suitcases and no idea where I was staying that night. This isn't all that different.

Right now, I have the scene I'm still writing, and know who's colliding with whom in the next scene (every scene is conflict, remember), and that's enough for right now.