When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney

Hi,

Merry Christmas to you all. I finished the Christmas story last night at fifteen minutes to Christmas. I successfully completed my challenge!

Enjoy!

When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney

Thanks

Matt

Christmas Eve

Hi,

It's Christmas Eve! Need I say more?

Well, I guess I can. If I get my Christmas Piece online today I will be thrilled and I'm sure all you readers (well, looking at the stats not many are visitors, more just bots from some money-scam site visiting for less than 10 seconds 5 times a day) will be thrilled too.

If I'm successful it means I have been able to write a story in a week. Now, you're all thinking 'liar' you started 2 weeks ago. True... but, apart from the opening paragraph I didn't write anything until last Sunday so it all adds up to make a week.

Thanks
Matt

Ill

Hi,

I'm ill. I have a bloody awful cold and a sore throat. This is impacting everything! In college today and yesterday I've been sniffling and sneezing. In my piano lesson I had to keep stopping mid-flow to blow my nose. I've not written since Sunday. My personal Deadline is Saturday. I've only written 488 words. My target is 2500 minimum. I can't even be bothered to write this blog with anything other than simple sentences with 1 clause.

I'm ill.

Thanks
Matt B

Christmas is Inspiring

Christmas is Inspiring

‘Christmas is coming,

The goose is getting fat

Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.’

Could be re-written as:

‘Christmas is coming,

The mind is getting fat,

Please put inspiration in your short works.’

Well, I doubt it would win any awards but it’s the best I could do! The point is that Christmas is an inspirational time of the year. We, as writers, should be ready to act upon inspiration whenever it presents itself to us. Sadly, many of us, myself included, often don’t have the time to act upon this inspiration.

However, I believe once a year we should allow ourselves to write free from the constraints of set word counts, planning, and the whole myriad of distractions which stops us acting on impulse and inspiration. This time is, if you haven’t guessed, Christmas. We all love a nice festive read so shouldn’t we all write one?

Last year I wrote a Christmas story in a day at college with the prompt ‘A Candle in the Dark’. It won the short story contest which was very good, but the main thing was that I wrote a good short story for the festive season in a set time with very few distractions. Granted it wasn’t complex; it was a quest story with a drunken Santa and an evil Jack Frost – but, it was fun to write and hopefully fun to read.

So, where does one look for festive inspiration? Christmas tales are always good to look at. Films, books, TV, comics will often have the same set of characters:  Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, Jack Frost, etc…. This base set of characters is fantastic as you don’t have to spend as long crafting the main cast of your story. Whenever I write with a known set of characters I always put a twist on the characters and add a new character to the group. I would advise you do the same.

This year, I have got my inspiration from another place as well. The good old Christmas Carol. Well, not just the good old ones but the good modern ones too. I’m not going to talk about my story this year as I don’t want anybody who plans on reading it to know what’s going to happen, but I will tell you that a lot of Christmas songs have inspired the plot.

To conclude:  Christmas is festive. Christmas is fun. Christmas is inspiring. Christmas is a good time to write. Christmas is great!

 Hope this helps,

Matt B

Christmas Restarted!

Hi,

Today is the first time, since I wrote the first few paragraphs of my Christmas story 1 week ago, that I have actually put hand-to-keyboard and typed something up. I more than doubled the length of the story in one sitting whilst watching the Comedy Awards on 4OD.

I hope to continue at this rate throughout the week. With the end of term in sight, it is unlikely that I will get any urgent work so I can put a little more time into writing this. Although it will have taken a fortnight to write the actual days will actually add up to a week so in reality if I finish Christmas Eve I will still have written a story in a week ... kinda anyway!

Thanks
Matt

Christmas Story Update 2

Hi,

It seems like I picked a bad week to try to write a story in a week. I have 3 trial exams this week so they have taken priority. Perhaps I should modify my target to a short story in a fortnight. It’s still something new for me and a challenge.

I guess I’ll have to wait for another occasion to arise where I can do my story in a week challenge.

This is also my first blog post with Blogger connected to G+. So hello to any new readers I have from G+!

Thanks
Matt

Christmas Story Update

Hi,

I got a few hundred words down yesterday. Not amazing, but I had to think of a way to start the story. It’s also been a challenge showing that it the story is on Earth, just minus one very important cultural thing. The story isn’t even about culture, it just so happens that I have to do it like this to get to the good bit faster.
I doubt I’ll get more than 500 today as I’m busy in the morning and have work to do for the rest of the day.
I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.

Thanks
Matt

Christmas Story

Hi,

Today I am going to start work on my Christmas story for 2011. I have an idea based around some famous Christmas songs, I have a middle, and I have an end. However, I am missing the opening. I simply can’t think of a way to start the story. I know the story is going to be good, but who’s going to read a story with a weak opening?

I’ve had Christmas songs playing as I work for the past week or so now as a source of inspiration. Seriously, it may be hard to believe but the songs ‘Last Christmas’, ‘Lonely Pup’, ‘I Wish it could be Christmas Everyday’ and ‘The Fairy Tale of New York’ have all helped to get the middle of the story sorted in my head.

I’ve also set myself a challenge with this story. Normally it takes between 1 and 2 months to write a short story to ‘upload standard’. I have done stories in a day before, but they needed a lot of editing. This story is going to be written in a week (hopefully). I’ve got the week end and I plan to not have lie ins on my late starts to get stuff written before leaving to college. Obviously AS Levels take priority, but I am really excited about getting writing.

Thanks,
Matt