Life Update and Some Cool Websites!

It seems that my creative block has finally fucked off. I’ve been writing a lot over the past week. Finally fleshing out a story that’s been rattling around in my head for awhile. Mostly placeholder names for characters & places but you never know what might stick! Over half of my DND characters ended up keeping their placeholder name.

There’s really 2 long term fiction projects I’ve got going. Next I want to outline a bunch of scenes for both. I’ve heard it makes actually writing the scenes easier later on. I suppose I’ll see if that’s how it works out for me. Everything’s worth trying once right?

I also recently discovered 2 pretty cool writing sites that have helped get inspired flowing. The first of which is Switch-Lit. This site's deal is that you can either pitch a story prompt idea or join a current prompt posted by Switch-Lit. And then you get paired with another writer (you get to set a few settings here) and then y'all take turns writing the short story with NO WAY TO CHAT until AFTER its done.

For instance:

• I wrote chapters 1, 3, and 5 on the most recent one I did.

• My writing partner wrote chapters 2,4, and 6.

I think this is such a fun way to get better at essentially improve and that same "yes, and..." energy that I enjoy from roleplaying games and such. And you have multiple days to write each section.

The second one is Writing Battles. I think at the moment I enjoy this one the most but it does have a slight cost ($30 or less so far) associated with it, so that's worth keeping in mind. I encourage you to check it out for the full details, but the jist of it is that you can enter both novice and professionally judged writing contests. They have multiple word lengths available and one starts about once every month or so. Here's what stands out, though:

• There is a PRIZE MONEY POOL for each battle & there are MULTIPLE WINNERS

• You get tons of great feedback from those who evaluate the work and in the novice battles it's the other novices that are doing the review so you get to read & rate some fun stories, too.

• It's an extremely FAST process for writing. It goes like this:

  • Day 1: You get your 3 cards that dictate the genre, prompt, and random item or character type you have to include in your story. (You have some control here)

  • Day 2: Your cards will get locked in if you haven't done it manually yet.

  • Day 3: Submit your finished piece by 10pm Eastern Time.

They’ve both helped me get outside my comfort zone. Pushed me to write without having the “perfect” idea or scene in mind. It’s been a great practice in sort of letting things fall together how they will rather than feeling like I’m putting together a pre arranged puzzle. I encourage anyone who's even a little bit curious about either one to give them a go. Let me know if you decide to join either one so we can geek out about writing together!