Sharon L. Clark

Sharon L. Clark, Author

Tag: short story snippet

NaNoWriMo, novel writing

Snippets and Stuff

By

On May 31, 2023

In Stories & Excerpts

My first novel is coming out this fall, and I am working toward finishing the next one – ‘finishing’ as in getting ready to send to editing – by the end of the summer. I’m learning a lot about myself through this endeavor.

Examples include:

  • I do my best writing in the morning, before my brain has a chance to be mushed up by the 1001 other things that will whirl like a cyclone through my mind the rest of the day.
  • My plots are very fluid and will change as I write, necessitating a lot of RE-writes before I even get to the end of the story. It’s frustrating and stressful and most likely the reason I do NOT have another book quite ready yet.
  • Writing snippets from daily prompts is both the BEST and the WORST. I love letting the word marinate for an hour or so before I try to write a 240-character scene around it. But then I have a scene with so much potential for a full novel that I get distracted by the new shiny thing.

It’s a sickness, I tell you.

While I am continuing to plug away on my next book, I wanted to share some of the snippets I’ve written in the past month or so. I created graphics – very rudimentary graphics that I’m sure actual artists will cringe at – for most of the prompts, so I’ve created a little gallery of some of my favorites.

Writing around these words is pretty challenging. And I find it really interesting to see what each one conjures in my mind, what connotation it holds for me, who I envision using it or being described by it. I use these exercises to stretch my brain and keep my creativity from becoming stagnant.

*If there are any that particularly pique your interest, leave a comment or send me an email and let me know; it just might be worked into a short story a future novel if enough people like it!
some days are strange, writing, author strugles

Some Days Are Just Strange

By

On November 16, 2018

In Messages From Sharon, Stories & Excerpts

We all have those days.

You wake up feeling “off.” No real reason why, just not really into it that day. It could be a lingering bad dream, or a negative comment online – or worse, ZERO comments online! Maybe you slept wrong, you couldn’t sleep, the atmosphere is charged with an impending snow storm, the planets are out of whack.

It happens to the best of us. Since this is the real world, and we’re all adults here, you can’t just pull the covers over your head and wait it out. Shoot, when you get to be my age, lying in bed all day just makes things worse. The creaks and hitches become cracks and full-on joint failures.

I was tempted today. Instead, I decided to shake things up a little.

I’ve been working on a fantasy story for my NaNoWriMo project. I have reached the 50,000-word goal and can now focus on making sure all my plot points are included and that my characters are behaving as they should. The problem with that is my brain is a bit frazzled today. So I poked it.

While some of you may be picturing Shel Silverstein’s drawing for the poem “Warning” from Where the Sidewalk Ends, (It’s just me? Go look it up. You won’t be sorry) that’s not quite what happened. A few years ago, one of the kids got my husband a book of writing prompts called 642 Things To Write About. I decided to dust that off and see if anything jumped out at me.

On the very first page of this book I read, “A houseplant is dying. Tell it why it needs to live.” Now I have a new 1700-word short story out in the world and I feel better.

Here’s a little snippet*:

That was about the end of my pep talk and I was freaking out a little. There had been no change and I didn’t know enough about plants to be really effective. I lifted up one of the long, thin stems of the half-flowers and looked it over.

“Oh! And this little flower thingy that you have here? What would the bees do without this? You provide them the building materials they need to make their homes and their honey. Did you know all the bees are dying? If you weren’t here, you’d be hurting them, too! You have to do your part. Think about that. Plus – you are right in front of this glass, where all the other inside flowers can see you. If YOU give up, the one big strong plant that actually lives IN the sun and the fresh air, what will the rest of them think?”

I was really starting to connect with this plant and suddenly realized I didn’t know his name. Closing my eyes, I reached out with an open mind and waited for him to tell me. He wasn’t very forthcoming at first, and I’ll admit I started to doze off in the silence. I mean, the sun was warm, it was still early, and let’s be honest, he wasn’t too entertaining. In an attempt to revive myself, I took another big swig of water, sharing a little with the plant, too, before resuming my meditative state.

Finally, a name made itself known to me: Bernard.

Some days are just strange.

How do you “poke your brain”? Do you have any tricks to get your creativity flowing again – or even just to do the things you need to do for the day? Comment below or feel free to shoot me an email!

*You can find the rest of the story on my Channillo Channel