For our visual prompts this month, I thought it would be fun to share some of the odd ornaments I’ve been given and some strange things I’ve used as ornaments. If you have some strange or funny ornaments that you would like to share as a visual prompt here on Experience Writing please let me know.

#vss very short story

Santa thought a trip to New Orleans might make him feel more festive. With his new boa and sparkly pants, he couldn’t help but jiggle and jangle. Once he returned to the North Pole, the elves had to scramble to find enough glitter to fill his new demands.

Today’s Poetry Prompt and Poem

Today’s poem is inspired by PAD Chapbook Challenge Day 29

For today’s prompt, write a response poem. The poem can be a response to anything–a piece of news, some art, a famous (or not so famous) quotation, or whatever. However, I thought it might be a cool opportunity to respond to a poem that you’ve written this month. If both poems work, it could make an interesting dynamic to have two (or more) poems that interact with each other.

I went back to the first poem I wrote in November, “I Don’t Write Poetry” from Day 1: The Ordinary World. I chose a couple of lines I really like “Life is a state of constant decay
But hard work helps the end’s delay” that I thought I might use in this response poem. But now, I’m thinking I might use this prompt as an opportunity for one of my other main characters (My MC’s wife) to respond to the first poem.

The Poet Who Won’t Show It

Imagine my surprise
I didn’t realize
He’s a poet
Through his adamant refusal.

He uses lovely words
For the world he observes
As he’s working
Hard on his recusal.

My pride would but offend
Though I know it’s all pretend
His hard edges
Are all a butch facade.

But he’ll never mend his ways
Even getting mad at jays
For being lazy
In the poem he’ll never write.

Editing Focus

I’m going to start this study with Revision And Self-Editing (Write Great Fiction) by James Scott Bell. I have read this before, but not worked through it. I hope to use it as more of a workbook this time around.

Exercise 1: Pick six books in your genre that you think might be comparable to your novel . Look for similar themes. Look at your favorite author in your genre. Look at similar styles to your writing and voice in your genre. Pick six books that you think you might be able to use to say, “My story is like ___________ combined with _______________  in the style of _____________.

You can definitely choose books you’ve read before, but plan to read them a couple more times, studying different aspects.

Exercise 1: My six books
The Hiding Place by David Bell
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
Evening News by Marly Swick
These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

#FlashFicHive

graphic by Anjela Curtis http://anjelacurtis.com/

I’m excited for #FlashFicHive this month. After spending the month of November working on a novel, writing some flash fiction is going to be fun. I hope you will join us in creating some flash fiction goals for the month. I plan on writing my very short stories every day, but I also want to work on some longer pieces. I have one Christmas-themed flash fiction story that needs work that I hope to look at this month as well.

Don’t Forget To Read!

(made me think, “Don’t forget to breathe!”)

If you’ve been following along for a while, you may have noticed that I read many books at once.

Today, I plan to finish Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace and turn my attention to The Hiding Place by David Bell. These are both books that I picked up thinking they might be comps (comparison novels) for this year’s NaNoWriMo project. Shallow Graves started out well. I was intrigued by the premise and the main character, but then it took a turn and floundered. I’m afraid I’m only getting through it at this point. I hope The Hiding Place turns out to be much more enjoyable.

What are you reading? What are you planning to read this month?

I hope you’ll join me for a month of writing and editing in these Final Days of 2017.

Happy Reading and Writing!