Quote by Ping


Today, April 17, is National/International Haiku Poem Writing Day. Write a Haiku and post it on Lush's Haiku page. See link below.

https://forum.lushstories.com/yaf_postsm3344574_HaikuLushly-speaking.aspx#3344574

E.B. is coming
As is this sexy blonde MILF
Read M.E.G.A.; learn more

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/flash-erotica/-mega-.aspx

***

Nothing to drink for me thanks.

Quote by fuzzyblue
I have dominated this thread - holy jamolies - for over a year now. But I can’t help myself. I promise I won't do it again, but this final time, I wanted to explain the first paragraph of Beating the Skin, which came second in the ‘Winter Adventure’ competition. I hope what I'm going to put here encourages others who struggle with words or think they’ll never do well in competitions. I know lots of writers like that. I wanted to share how I came up with the opening of the story and over two months improved it. I’m not saying it was great by the end, but wanted you to see how rotten it was to begin with; show you how no matter how raw your story in its first draft, it will get better. The only tools you need are low cunning (to steal without shame) and a willingness to rewrite until you find your voice. Everyone has that in them. Serendipity takes care of the rest.

Anyway, the first sentences of Beating the Skin were written on 31 October, before the competition it was eventually to be entered into was announced. Here’s what I wrote:



Isn't that the worst start to a story you've read? A lot of my stories begin that badly. The only thing I have to remember is not to click the Publish button yet. It’s just a start. From here, I’ll tack bits on and sometimes the story takes off. In this case, that evening I was looking at a Google Street View of the Shakespeare & Co bookshop in Paris (raise a glass to my social life). The front of the store looked fabulous. I zoomed into some writing by the door to read the epigram (‘people call me the Don Quixote … because my head is so far up in the clouds’). I wanted to know more about the character on that sign. So I kidnapped him for my story. Now my protagonist had a name and the hint of a personality.

I liked it better, but I didn’t have much idea about where the story would go. I’d only written a couple of hundred words and story would probably have been abandoned, until two weeks after the competition was announced (Google Docs tells me all this) when I came back to it, wondering how my character would make a journey as the competition suggested? And what if it was started on a Scottish island (and all the backstory implicit there); what if he had to find someone using a map? Why had she left? Once you get the start of these questions they tend to bubble up into answers that invite more questions, such as if my story was to be set on a Gaelic-speaking island, what would ‘Stretch’ be called? I looked up the Gaelic for ‘stretch’. It was ‘Sìneadh’.

That dictionary check changed everything, including the character’s sex. I had my voice. I knew who Sìneadh was, how she'd speak English in that sort of formal, gentle way infused by Gaelic's lack of indefinite articles. I knew her accent; even now it's in my head. I wrote the whole story in that voice and the first paragraph I wrote on 15 November didn’t change much from then on:



Now she'd come alive, the rest of the story was easy to write. I knew how she'd react, what she'd say and how she'd change. And, at last, how my story might end. The only thing I had to be careful of was getting carried away with her, which I did a bit. For example, I wrote a rhyme to start the story, sung by two other characters, Donald and Angus, ‘until Donald’s wife swung open a window and told them to shut the fuck up about Sìneadh Macleod.’



Though I liked the rhyme enough, I could see that it was background, complicating the story. I ended up cutting scenes like this. I don't miss them.

I’ve only talked about the 59 words of my first paragraph. You should see the rest. But anyway, I hope it’s clear how hard I found it to write. I kept going to scratch the scab on the version before. This is embarrassing to admit: I wrote 94 drafts of this story by the end of November, and 212 by the time I submitted the final version. That's 212 times I went into Google Drive and changed something, big or small. In my final edit on 29 December at 6:21 am, Google tells me I made 157 last-minute changes. It’s no wonder I haven’t looked at it since.

I'm not saying it will take everyone that long. I fiddle more than I need to. It's more to make the point that it doesn't just flow; it's all rewriting and finding odd things and putting them in and accepting that things can just change suddently. I hope this encourages you. Just keep going, keep writing it. The story emerges.

Quote by Green_Man


Hi, Jeff. On the Home page Competitions is under categories on the left side. Select that and then the competition you want. In this case "Notorious."

I'll take a cuppa java, if you please.

Regrets go out to the world today.

Quote by honeydipped


amen.

Quote by HeraTeleia
Well, it didn't earn an RR, it's not in the comp, but now I can say that I posted something in 2019. Give it a go, it clocks in at under 800 words. Manna From Heaven

Quote by naughtyannie
I'll just leave this here. Because you know you want to.

Quote by Jen
I need rum. A double. Maybe a triple. Just home from being dragged to see Hellboy. That's two hours of my life I won't get back. One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Bad acting. Bad CGI. Bad plot. Just bad. It's bad. Did I say it's bad?

Verbal will probably love it

Quote by Ping


Best of luck with the stories. Sounds like you’re on a good track.

If you get a chance, tell the conductor the orchestra sounded like a bunch of arm pit farts and whoopee cushions. It’s code. You’ll receive special treatment.

Enjoy the concert. It will be memorable. Especially for everyone sitting near you when you place your upturned palms against your mouth and start blowing hard to Gershwin. It’s a highly respected move.

Episode 7 of Killing Eve and Day Two of the Masters.

Thanks for the coffee. I helped myself.

Quote by vanessa26

Quote by fuzzy1954


That is the best coffee ever, do you have a Beignet to go with?

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Don't worry about the kitten she's threatening..she wont do it she knows me and Sprite would kick her ass

I spent a long rainy afternoon at the Cafe du Monde, the day after Mardi Gras, drinking coffee, eating beignets, and nursing a killer hangover.

Too late in the afternoon for coffee. Guess I'll have a (shudder) herbal tea.

Hey Curvy! Hey Scott! Glad to hear another season of The Expanse is on the way.

Quote by Beffer
You could spot me a mile away!