When Snow Falls

When Snow Falls  -  Background Image courtesy of SummitCountyVoice, text and snow added by me

Joe shivered as he entered through the doorway. Not only was the morning freezing cold outside, but also his wife waited for him inside. He knew she’d care not that he’d broken the world record of most letters delivered in an hour. He knew this from her posture: sitting upright on her hardback chair meant she was annoyed. Her gaunt face tightened as Joe approached her.

“Good morning,” he said. “It’s Christmas tomorrow.”

She slowly rose from her chair, her heels putting her many inches higher than Joe’s already small being. She looked at her hand, as if contemplating its capabilities. Her long black nails caressed her palm as she flexed her fingers. Joe knew what was coming. His wife’s eyes squinted, signalling she had worked out her hand’s capability and that she was willing to show it off. She smacked it around his face; the nails left stinging scratches that no doubt shone red against his cold skin.

“Do not say that again,” she spat.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Very good. Now, be a good husband and get my breakfast; I am growing hungrier by the minute. You should have been back ten minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” He hurried off to the kitchen, his feet shuffling along the stone floor she had been so insistent on having. Opening the fridge, he welcomed the cool air on his burning scars. There were no eggs. He felt her moist breath on his neck.

“Why are there no eggs?” She asked.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“You insolent man. Why I put up with you as a husband is beyond me! No eggs. Has it escaped your memory that I have eggs for breakfast every fourth Monday of every month? Perhaps that ginger hair of yours blocks intelligence. You are a despicable being.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

She shook her head. “Why are you still here? Why aren’t you buying eggs?”

“I’m sorry ma’am.”

He hadn’t even taken a full step before she spoke again. “Are you forgetting something?”

“I’m sorry ma’am.” He bent down and kissed her feet. Twice on the right, once on the left. She waved a hand signalling he was ‘free’ to go.

I'm Sorry, ma'am

Long Black Nails
Image Courtesy of Kiss and Makeup

As regular readers of my blog will know, I am writing a Christmas Short Story at the moment. Now that I have solved my paradox with a little help from some friends, I have started writing it.

I wrote 230 words this evening which isn't bad as they are the opening 230 words. Normally I start off with small word counts for the first few days, reach 500 words a day in the middle and then write the last 1000 in a single sitting. With this in mind I should be able to finish before Christmas Eve with time to spare.

Today, I thought it would be nice to share these first 230 raw words with you. Remember they are highly likely to change, and I rarely share work this raw. But, I have decided to share it with you today so you can see my writing method. In these paragraphs I have focused mainly on the evil wife and Joe's submissiveness, but haven't yet got to fully describing his appearance.

Working Title: When Snow Falls

Joe shivered as he entered through the doorway. Not only was the morning freezing cold outside, but also his wife waited for him inside. He knew she’d care not that he’d broken the world record of most letters delivered in an hour. He knew this from her posture: sitting upright on her hardback chair meant she was annoyed. Her gaunt face tightened as Joe approached her.

###

“Good morning,” he said. “It’s Christmas tomorrow.”

She slowly rose from her chair, her heels putting her many heads higher than Joe’s already small being. She looked at her hand, as if contemplating its abilities. Her long black nails caressed her palm as she flexed her fingers. Joe knew what was coming. His wife’s eyes squinted, signalling she had worked out her hand’s ability and that she was willing to show it off. She smacked it around his face; the nails left stinging scratches that no doubt shone red against his cold skin.

“Do not say that again,” she spat.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Very good. Now, be a good husband and get my breakfast; I am growing hungrier by the minute. You should have been back ten minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” He hurried off to the kitchen, his feet shuffling along the stone floor she had been so insistent on having. Opening the fridge, he welcomed the cool air on his burning scars.

###

Feeling Christmassy yet? I don't think Joe's wife is!

Thanks

Matt B

Paradox

As with Science for Writers, the Vocab Builder series is on hold until after my January exams are over. But as I promised I will still be blogging, only not taking 2 hours to write a post!

I still haven't started writing my Christmas Short, hence the face-palm. My problem is although I have the characters, I have one major plot hole. And it's to do with time travel, hence the sci-fi reference.

It reminds me why I haven't written a story with time travel before. There are just too many damn paradoxes to contend with. But, it is a necessity for the character arc and to give the Joe's evil wife her comeuppance.

The issue is how I want time travel to be used in the story. It needs the character to either replace his old self or interact with him. Problem is after he does this the character has no need to travel into the past to interfere with events. I originally thought of shrugging the problem off with this exchange:

"But how can I have changed the past? It makes no sense," he asked.

Snowman Mafia

Night of the Evil Snowman
Image courtesy of Rate my MS Paint

Science for writers is on hiatus until after my January A Level Exams are over. They take a long time to write and I don't have a long time to write blog posts at the moment.

However, I will be blogging at least twice a week throughout the period. I am hoping to keep you all updated with news and snippets from my Christmas Short story this year. I plan to start writing it on Tuesday and have it finished and uploaded by Christmas Eve. Today I came up with the idea in a burst of weird inspiration. All the characters and main plot lines popped into my head and for a moment I felt like what I can only assume someone on LSD would feel. You'll understand why I felt like that in a moment.

I don't want to give too much plot away, so today I'm just letting you in on the characters that will be making their appearances in the story.

Postman Joe
This guy's an average, boring man who gives in to people way to easily. He will go through the largest character arc in the story.

The Postman's Evil wife
This woman's a bitch! Skinny and gaunt she looks like one of James' mean aunts from RD's James and the Giant Peach. Utterly evil to Joe she makes him do whatever she wants, because she knows he won't say no. I hope I can give her her comeuppance in this piece.

Santa Clause
Well, it's a Christmas story written by me, he has to be in it! Unlike previous years this one's not a drunkard, nor hopelessly stuck in a chimney. In this story Santa will actually be like most people's interpretations of Santa ... only with a few twists.

The Elves
Don't get too attached to these nice beings, I think I may make them get caught in the cross fire.

The Snowman Mafia
May be called the Snow Mafia, depending on how I feel on Tuesday. As you might have guessed these are the main antagonists of the story. These make Evil wife look pleasantly mean. The head of the Mafia, Big Snowy will do everything in his power to stop Joe and Santa from reaching/meeting their goal. I haven't decided if Little Frosty or Skinny Jack (Frost) will make apperences in the Mafia.

So, can you see now why I felt like I was high on LSD? When a postman, Santa, elves and a Mafia made from snow enter your imagination it's hard to feel much else!

Thanks

Matt B

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

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