I Write: Mystery or Thriller?

I wrote a short story for my Writing Mysteries and Thrillers class. It was the final assignment and I had some serious trouble getting traction on an idea to start. When I got the idea and started writing, I wasn't sure how it would go, whether my idea actually would make sense to anyone but me. 

But I wrote it, and in the interest of calling myself a writer, here it is: 

(EDIT 12/17/2020 - I just received my grade for the class - 100%. I must have been doing something right.)

She snaps a fresh glove down over her wrist, the sound echoing in the nearly vacant room. Surveying the scene, she narrows her eyes. She holds herself erect, her face a blank slate. There’s no room for emotion here. She doesn’t take any joy or pride in this particular part of the job. But it needs to be done. 

Her right hand fists at her hip, pushing back the right quarter of her suit jacket, exposing the pocket of slim-fitting pants. With the turtleneck underneath, the suit she wears is a stereotypical look - if she were a man. But she enjoys it. She is far from typical. 

I Write: Virtual Trip

The assignment for Writing Mysteries and Thrillers this week was to take your reader on a virtual trip to a place that is not your hometown. It could be somewhere you've been, or somewhere that you've just researched.  The second part was to guess whether we'd been there or not. 

My piece is below - of course, I talked about a bookstore - El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires. If you haven't heard of it, please google it. It's beautiful. 

I Write: Mysteries & Thrillers (NaNoWriMo & continuing education)

It is of course November 1, and that means NaNoWriMo starts today.  Coincidentally and very fortunately, I am also taking another continuing education course in pursuit of my Creative Writing certificate titled Mysteries & Thrillers. 

Mysteries and Thrillers have never been a genre that I thought I was interested in writing about, but only one week in I have all of these ideas bustling around in my head and I'm very, very excited about it. I'm including my first assignment below as it also pertains to my NaNoWriMo project because really, if I have ideas for class, and it's Nov. 1 why shouldn't I use the ideas for both things!?  Right?  RIGHT?!?

Commentary

I am a white woman. I've had the advantage of that my whole life, without even knowing about it. I've known I've lived a pretty easy life. I don't, and have never denied that. But I've always said it was because my parents, and their parents worked hard to give their children those advantages. It never really occurred to me that even hard work can't erase systemic disadvantages. 

I haven't liked the term white privilege. I feel like it lumps us all in the same bucket. But I can't, with an conscience, deny that it's true. There is a certain privilege to being born white. Even more so, if you're born white and male. More than that if you're born white, male and rich.  

But I digress. Events in the US right now have been widening my eyes to how things work in that country, and by extension in my own. The system really is broken. It's been broken for a long time. And those it's broken for have been telling us for a very long time. It's time we actually paid attention. Because those of us who reap the greatest advantages from that system are the best ones to fix it. We have to change our mindset in order to change the system that our blindness has supported. 

I've been racist because I've taken advantage of my privilege without questioning it. I grew up in a small town where almost everyone was like me. I live in a city that's pretty similar. I have a very small social circle; at first glance it's very homogeneous - not by design but because it's small and I don't go out of my way to meet any new people. I've had connections with BIPOC but not all friendships/relationships are meant to be lifelong. I've never had any personal experience that has led me to hold judgements against individuals who look different from myself. I've always hoped (and believed) that I judge each person based on their character, and not their physical appearance.

I'm choosing to listen and learn and educate myself in order to make sure that I am being the best advocate (ally?) that I can be. I'm going to do what I do best, and read about the history of injustice in order to own the part I play in it. I am going to stop being offended by BIPOC complaints against "white people." If I am doing nothing wrong, I have no need to feel guilt or shame. But doing nothing isn't right. I pledge to be anti-racist - to point out racism and do whatever I can to quash it whenever I can.

I've learned in real terms why Black Lives Matter is really only the beginning of that sentence. It's really that Black Lives Matter just as much as every other life.  All lives can't matter until all life matters the same. I've learned how deeply the world is flawed for some people, statistically. And how we all learn these behaviours, so we have to make the effort to un-learn them. 

I don't really have anything to contribute to the larger conversation, which is why I'm leaving this here. I needed to write it, as part of my own process. To acknowledge the problems, to make sure that I do whatever I can. I do not have any power, except over my own actions, but I will do what I can to support the human race, in all it's glorious shades.

"There's only one Race. The Human Race."

The most important seven words that I have heard this week.

 https://janeelliott.com/

I Write: Historical Figure

The third assignment in my Creativity for Writers class was to write about a Historical Figure. I spent a lot of time thinking about who that might be for me, and then I got the direction that it could be anyone. A relative, or whoever. And so inspiration hit me.   Keep in mind though that these particular assignments are only to be 250 words.

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I Write: Vivid Dream

Assignment #2 for the Creativity for Writers was to write about a vivid dream. I don't really remember my dreams in a sense that I can write them like a story.  So this is what I came up with.
(reminder - assignments are only 250 words)

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I Write: Assignment - Childhood Memory

Assignment in Creativity for Writers: Write a 250 word description of your most vivid and earliest memory.

We were getting ready to go somewhere, my dad, my mom, and I. It was late afternoon or early evening and it was summer. My mother was in the shower; the bathroom was around the corner from my bedroom and I could hear the water running. I was in my bedroom, trying to be independent. My dresser was several drawers tall, four or maybe five. For some reason, my socks were kept in the top drawer. The top drawer was above my head, as I was then, and still am, fairly short.

I write: Creativity for Writers

Today starts a new online course for me toward the Creative Writing certificate. Creativity for Writing is an entirely online course (and was always intended to be online) and features writing, and blogging for 8 weeks. I'm not sure how this one is going to go, as sharing my work has always been the hardest part and this is actually a graded course, which means I have to share and participate in order to earn my grades.

Sharing may actually be easier when you don't have to be face-to-face with anyone. The only contributor is a faceless name on the screen rather than having to see anyone's face as I publicly share. I will also share items here as I've done previously. I have a couple of things from the Science Fiction and Fantasy class that I haven't shared as of yet because I was waiting to see if there was going to be any feedback - which there wasn't.  But that's okay - I missed the last class anyway.

Waiting currently for the Wikispaces blog space that I need for the class in order to do the first piece of my first assignment. Looking forward to the new writing challenges to come.

I write: Technology in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Writing Assignment – Technology in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Overview:

We’re back to the workshop again this week, this time thinking about the technology that exists in our created world, how it affects that world, and the people in it. But we’ve got to keep the tension up, so at least some of this technology creates an impending disaster.

A technology allowed to be taken to the extreme threatens to destroy our civilization: socially, politically, or physically.

1. What is the technology?
2. What is it that makes it such a threat?
3. What kind of character would be the most interesting to engage with the technology and save the world?

I write: Decisions in a tense world: Political and Social Systems

Writing Assignment – Decisions in a tense world: Political and Social Systems

The Set up - Overview

This week I’d like you to write a scene. It can be a standalone story or part of a larger tale that you haven’t yet written. The goal of the scene is to show a character making a decision with life-changing consequences. This decision should be heavily influenced by, or take place in the context of, your fictional world.

Your fictional world, in this case, should take a fundamental value of our current societies on earth and change them in some way. It can take the form of either a science-fiction or fantasy setting, but it has to be different from today. Is it a world where fertile women are forced into child-bearing servitude? Is it a world where magic exists, but is forbidden? Is it a world of mass oppression and class struggle? Think through how those factors would weigh in your characters decision process.

I write: Science Fiction

The first assignment for my Science Fiction and Fantasy class was to take a normal, everyday thing and make it sound like science fiction. We were given an example of how to do that, which basically gave us the direction to be vague but specific at the same time.

I found this very difficult.  I relied heavily on the Thesaurus app. According to critique, I did very well.

Keep reading to see for yourself:

New challenges part 2

This week I start a Science Fiction and Fantasy class. I don't really write Science Fiction or Fantasy, but I do have ideas that could be classified as Fantasy-lite, and I think that I will find this class very interesting. It could also very possibly ignite a significant amount of creativity because it's just that little bit out of my normal comfort zone.

I will share things here as I write them, just as I did in the fiction class. I don't expect that I will ever become a published writer, so the only way I can share is to do it here.  If anyone reads them and happens to enjoy what I've written then yippee for me. But I write for myself, not for an audience.

In the next 6 months, I'll be taking 3 different writing classes, including this Science Fiction & Fantasy one. I will hopefully be able to keep up with the work involved, and will not find myself bogged down between real life and the writing life. But I so enjoyed the previous fiction class that I find myself compelled to continue the courses. By July, I will be only one course away from my certificate in Creative Writing. And in the meantime, I've also signed up for a certificate in Business Writing so that I can continue taking classes and learning when I'm done the creative version.

It's really all about a quest for knowledge and exposure to ideas and words. If I can find new and different ways to do that, I'm all for it. For now, this is my outlet.  It's all about my mental well-being really. I like to take the stories out of my head, and this is a good place and way to do that.

I write: Internal Monologue

Second exercise in Week 4 of class was Interior monologue - which I call internal monologue.  (Interior makes me think the person was speaking to themselves inside.)

Direction was to write a paragraph or so of internal monologue, inside the head of the main character, whatever seems appropriate for your protagonist to say.

And here's what I wrote:

I write: character description

For week 3 of the course, we were writing 200-250 words that included description of our character, their location and something they might be doing.  It was described as a paragraph of each thing, but it felt simpler to write it as a cohesive scene that dropped elements of each of those into it. 

This is my second version because my character changed - so the character study from the last class isn't even the same person as this one.  Things shifted as I was thinking about her.  And after hearing about plot things adjusted again.  I know all of these elements already, but it's refreshing the knowledge that I have and reinforcing how I should be handling the story.  I'm always trying to rush ahead, write the scene, write the dialogue.  But focusing on the character is giving me a good place to start that directs my story. 

I Write: character study

In the class I'm taking, we did a 10 minute writing exercise based on The Proust Questionnaire which asks several questions and expects you to describe the answer as a way to build your character.  Essentially answering the question as your character.  3 of the questions are:
1) What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2) what is the trait you most deplore about yourself?
3) what do you consider your greatest achievement?

I took it as my character pondering the questions and answering as if she'd been asked it directly.  It's a bit rambly, but I wrote from her view, and it seemed consistent with her.

My unedited character piece is below...

New Challenges

This week, I begin a course in Fiction Writing through Continuing Education at a local University.  There is potential to earn a Creative Writing Certificate if I take 5 other classes including one required class. 

I chose to take this class because I needed something to motivate me to write.  And I needed something to confirm whether I should even bother or not.  I still feel like I need to write, and I want to write, but I don't find myself writing or making myself even want to try.  By taking the class I'm challenging myself to do what I've talked about doing for my entire life.   Write.

I plan to post things that I've written for the class here.  I'm not looking for encouragement or critique - I just want to make sure that I'm actually doing something with the writing.

As of Wednesday, I will be a practicing author again.  Let's see how this goes.