If you have been with me for a while, you know I am totally geeked out about 3-D printing. I think it will be world changing, and you can see my fictional examples in Keep Trucking, Pickup Line, and my winning flash in the eSpec flash competition for the February 2019 – My Lifestyle Choice is the Best One, Let Me Tell You About It. My non-fictional piece for Geeking Science is: 3D Printer Tech.
Yesterday, this came across my facebook feed. This! This is 3-d printing changing the world.
Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Surviving the first three days of the Nymphs and Satyr club’s Halloween competition meant Thebe needed to call her day employer and beg for time off. She hadn’t expect it to go well, and she was right. Bryson fired her.
Fortunately the $3,000 she had already pocketed from making it this far would easily cover her until she found another retail position. Her night job had given her a week’s vacation before signing in, so she had something if she was kicked out tonight.
Thebe wished she could talk to Rhene, her best friend who dragged her into this mess. But since Rhene had pulled a blue and white domino and Thebe’s mask was the green and black of forest, her confidant was on a different team. Celestial to her team of Nature nymphs. Their two teams, plus Fire and Water, made the four-way competition. No contact or collusion between teams except during head-to-head matches.
She really could use an ally. The competition was not only between teams, but also had one winner. Each day saw another woman kicked off each team. Thebe still wasn’t sure how her two hundred and forty pound ass had gotten this far. Sure her six foot frame distributed the weight so she wasn’t a butterball like Cristina on the Fire team who weighed the same but was an entire foot shorter, but Thebe knew her teammates hated her chunky butt. The mix of team and individual results drove paranoia within and without the teams. The high-scoring Water team was pulling away from the pack in more ways than one. Thebe gave them one more day before self-destructing.
Having used up her one personal call for the competition, and her daily break from one-way mirrors and web-cameras, Thebe returned to her team’s room for a quick shower as the rest of the girls got their daily privacy break.
Thebe played it up for the camera as water sluiced over her. She was pretty sure she had gotten a following on the members-only website. No way her teammates hadn’t put her head on the chopping block. Yes, Daisy had been a no-brainer the first day, but since then … According to the other girls, who have actually watched this competition on the web, ejection votes were only part of the mix. The winning team gets to “immunize” one member from each of the other teams. The object is to weaken their chances by forcing the other nymphs to keep weak players.
The balance of the decision came from audience. People could pay up to $100, $10 per each keep vote. Anyone making it five days gets to take home 10% of their supporter’s payments as a bonus. So Thebe soaped up her D-cups, trying to find the balance between titillating and tawdry.
Meryl was tawdry and had come screaming in the room yesterday. Once during the week each competitor can find out how the vote work – she could find out how everyone voted on every team for that day only, or she could find out how her team voted that particular day plus her standings for every day before. … Meryl’s slutty and superior behavior was playing well for the hard-porn audience the competition catered to, but not her team. After Meryl’s initial rant about how many ugly and fat girls were in the competition this year, including but not limited to Cristina and Thebe, Thebe hadn’t changed her eject vote once.
Heavy breathing echoed through the speakers signaling the next competition. Thebe wrapped a towel around her and rushed into the main room.
A photo shoot, each girl dressing up as the winner. The Nymph Mistress to a Satyr Master. The shoot would be in the Elemental mask and nothing else.
Seeing no reason to dress , Thebe followed the other women into “magic” room. Today it was a …
(and this again is too much for a simple flash I am aiming for)
(word count 643; first published 3/3/2019)
Photo by Alora Griffiths on Unsplash
Critiques are like exercise for writers; they help build writing muscles through practice and pain, using a spotter to help with the heavy lifting.
The problem is pain also is a warning from the body and mind something is not right. The question then becomes, how does one tell the difference between a good pain and a bad pain?
In many ways, the difference is like the results of exercise: is the pain helping you grow and get better?
Merethe Walther wrote an article: Why Learning How to Recognize Bad Critiques Is A Writing Skill You Didn’t Know You Needed.
She provided a list of five things to look for. I’ve interpreted them according to the exercise metaphor above.
If you would like to see her full breakdown and explanation as how it applies to authors, go here: https://medium.com/@merethewalther/why-learning-how-to-recognize-bad-critiques-is-a-skill-you-didnt-know-you-needed-df0935b75329
Image courtesy of multiple internet postings
For three months, I’m focusing on writing exercises to test techniques for producing words so you can find the best one for you. Not every method will work with every person. In fact, my methods change throughout the year. What works during tax season does not work during the summer.
Don’t be afraid to change things up if one of the six techniques stops working. Just return to these posts and other techniques you will collect as you explore your writing abilities and go back to testing them until a new one jumps out at you. Explore and find what is the right one for “you as a writer” for now. And when the time comes around again, the right one for future-you.
For February, we will talk about Dating and Deadlines. Break out your calendars and planners.
Third. Writing Dates. Set up a date for some private time between you and your keyboard. This could be a daily appointment in the morning or afternoon. It could a few days each week. It could be just one day on the weekend. But block out that time like you would do any meeting or date and don’t renege. Who knows, if this goes well, maybe next year you should buy your keyboard a Valentine Day’s card as an anniversary of your first date.
Fourth. Deadlines. Make them and keep them. Book due date – rough draft, etc. Just like you will be doing once you start getting contracts with publishers. Dissemble the project into chunks to meet those dates and deliver the product. If you are familiar with project planning software, break it out so long as you don’t spend as much time playing as you do working.
WRITING EXERCISE: Try one of the two techniques.
(A) Writing Dates – Set up three writing dates, at least one a week and at least two hours long. Prep for them like you would a date – dress perfect for the activity. Light a scented candle or put on mood music. And shut the door.
(B) Deadlines – Set a deadline to happen in the next four weeks. Be it word count, or chapter number, or an anthology you would like to submit to. Meet it.
Evaluate. Did you ENJOY the technique you tried? Did you feel COMMITTED while working on it? Did you PRODUCE a good product? (note – good product is a first draft you can edit later, not a finished product worthy of publication)
***
My Attempts
Writing Dates – Another fail for me, but I thought it would be great. I am very organized and track everything. But, for me, this scheduled appointment with the keyboard was the one appointment I knew I could break, so I did it. For others, scheduling time with the keyboard every weekend is their only way to get writing done. I know several authors who talk about their love of dating their writing.
Deadlines – Yeah. Deadlines. I try this one ALL THE TIME and really should give it up because my continuing failures just make me angry. For me deadlines are like rules for pirates: guidelines and most of them get erased.
Image courtesy of alexisdc. at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Rating: Mature
“Not ready yet, my dear.”
Cheyanne glanced over her shoulder in annoyance at the vampire lord who bought her body and soul, but not her spirit. “I would be if your brother didn’t keep unzipping the dress.”
“Garrett.” Clayton admonished, a touch of exasperation lacing his voice.
“I can’t help it, Clay,” the ghost formed between the woman and the silver-backed mirror. “This body should never be covered up. Especially these bazongas.” He reached for the large breasts the loose dress top revealed, the dark brown tips drawing into points as his cold presence brushed against them.
“While I agree with the sentiment, our guest and I are expected at a gala within the hour.” The younger brother approached the warlock-kin’s back and grasped the zipper, sliding it up her back.
Rather than keep eye contact, Cheyanne turned back to the mirror where her master remained invisible. Garrett hadn’t fully formed, so she could focus past him. Knocking his insubstantial hands out of the way, she pulled the top into place as the fabric tightened with the closure. She worked hard to appear resolutely angry when the ninety-year-old vampire raised her hair to kiss the back of her neck, and the ghost, who had died in his teens, continued to play with her nipples through the beaded fabric.
One day she would kill her father for enslaving her, and maybe when she raised him from the dead with her rapidly developing necromantic powers, she would thank him for selling her to the brothers.
(words 253; first published 2/24/2019)