Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 11:12AM in Week 10 You're waiting with bated breath. I know you are.
The second draft is with my editor, and so, barring the need for extensive revisions, Week Ten's completed challenge should be up on the site later tonight!
Sunday, January 27, 2013 at 7:55PM in Week 10 So part of being a blog proprietor/creator (I could have just written "a blogger" I guess) is that you get to see the search terms that led people from Google/Yahoo/wherever to your blog.
Recently, some intrepid seeker of truth from Canada wanted to know: "are fiction authors borderline schizophrenics?" And this journey ultimately, somehow, led him/her to my blog.
Well, seeker, I hope you found the answers you sought here at the Unwritten Word. (Then again, it's worrisome for me if you did...) I don't have much experience at all with schizophrenia, borderline or otherwise, but stick with me anyway. Fiction writers can't be 100% mentally fit—surely something helpful to you will occur to me before long.
In other news, a small maybe on posting Week Ten tonight, but definitely by tomorrow night. It's going really well. So well that I kind of don't want to stop. But momentum, folks. There are so many more awful prompts to conquer...
Friday, January 25, 2013 at 1:23PM in Inspiration From sci-fi author (and professional good guy) John Scalzi, a different perspective on the financial considerations of being a writer:
Every once in a while someone in the comments here says, usually as an aside to something else, that no one becomes a writer to get rich. So as a point of clarification, and to give everyone else who is slightly exasperated by this sort of comment something to point at:
Hey, I became a writer to get rich. I’ve always been in the writing business not just to write, and not just to make money, but also to make a lot of money — basically, to get rich at it. Why? Because speaking from experience, being poor sucks, and in the world we live in, things are a whole lot easier if you have a lot of money. The thing I do best in the world in a professional sense is writing, so if I were to become rich, getting rich through writing seemed like the most likely way for me to do it.
[...]
As a final thought on the point, one of the reasons that “no one writes to get rich” and “no one writes to make money” bug the crap out of me is that this is the sort of thinking, intentional or otherwise, that gives bad people cover to screw writers with regard to money, and gives uncertain writers a reason to shrug off being screwed. If you as a writer buy into the idea you can’t/won’t make money and that you can’t/won’t get rich, then you are more than halfway to ensuring that you won’t, in fact, make money (much less get rich).
Read the rest here!
And happy Friday!
Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 10:26PM in Week 10 
Well! Here's a rare case where I actually have a pretty good idea of what I want to write about.
Having now actually been a teacher here and there, I do have some things to say about the experience. I'm thinking nonfiction this time, but have no idea the form this piece will take...
Monday, January 21, 2013 at 4:00AM in Inspiration Some world-building musings from author Chuck Wendig:
I’m always a little… reticent to fall too deep into the world-building rabbit-hole, because oh, what a deep and wonderful hole it is. In both my upcoming YA cornpunk series and in my next Angry Robot novel, The Blue Blazes, by golly, there was worldbuilding to be done. But I also found that the worldbuilding was easy to become tangential and distracting — there comes a point when figuring out the details of the world crosses over from “enhances the richness of the narrative” to “tangles the narrative up in its own shoelaces and makes it fall down and chip a tooth and then everybody laughs at it as it skulks home, weeping into its bloodied hands.”
[...]
Really heavy worldbuilding distracts me, I think — once I hit that point in a fantasy novel that we have to describe the pubic grooming habits of halflings or the lyrical history of the lizard people’s addiction to chocolate eclairs I start to tune out. But, when done well, it gives you a deeper sense of place and roots you to the story in a way that the plot itself cannot. (This is true in much the same way that details about a character can bring you closer to that character — at least, until they don’t, until they expel you from them like an exorcism purging a ghost.)
Read the rest here!
I feel the same, which was part of the struggle to get started on Week Eight's eventual story (remember that? you didn't even read it but I'm still writing the series so nyah). I don't lavish too much attention on those details in the books I read, but for some reason I feel like it's my responsibility to include them in books I write.
Why? Because.
Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 4:00AM in Process, Reflections [Read the completed stories here!]
That was the most fun I've had with one of these yet. It was also the most organized I've been—prompts were scheduled to be posted in advance (you don't really think I was up at 4am do you?) and I had already completed each challenge a day or two before they were due. This gave me time to revise if needed.
Also, because the goal was truly just to burn through these truly awful "ideas," I was able to relax and experiment a bit more than usual.
And, folks, we didn't even get through all of them. I mean, these prompts are all terrible to some extent—I was learning, okay?!—but many more are, well, like Wednesday's.
We'll have to do another microfiction week soon. Perhaps real soon!
Week Ten will be posted next Tuesday, as I am on vacation until then. You will just have to wait. I know, I know. And I am sorry.
Okay, I'm vacation sorry. It's an insincere sort of regret. That's the best I can do for you.
See you soon!
Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 4:00AM in Week 09 
Ah, another double entendre, à la Tuesday's prompt. (My French is really coming along, don't you think?)
There's a lot going on here, so let's take a moment to deconstruct this a little.
You see, sometimes, a person can see past all your layers and defenses and know immediately what you're about. We call this "seeing through" someone.
But sometimes, sometimes, a person can look at you and see nothing. As if you were not even there. And that's called "looking through" someone.
"Seeing" and "looking" are synonyms, and yet, in this context, they could not be expressing something more different. Let's... hoo boy. Let's just let this settle in. Wow, you know?
The completed story can be found here!
Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 4:00AM in Week 09 
Ha ha ha ohhhh dear sweet melodramatic Freshman me. I have so many questions for you.
How does one even measure poetic force? (What's the SI unit on that?)
Does a faucet, dripping or otherwise, contain any poetic force at all?
Are you just very passionate about not wasting water?
Whatever's going on, I'm not sure it's that you're tired. Shhh. C'mon buddy. It's okay. You can talk to me.
The completed story can be found here!
Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 4:00AM in Week 09 
Yep. Is this train inbound... or sinbound?
I can't remember if someone had actually graffitied an "S" onto an INBOUND sign or if this was ingenuousness of my own imagining.
I do remember that I thought this was just intensely clever. So much potential here. Can't you see it?
SINBOUND!
...Yeah.
The completed story can be found here!
