The last five days I have been doing #VSS365 which was a completely new and random hashtag I had seen until New Year’s Eve. I decided last minute that this would be a fun little challenge to present myself with as the new year began.
#VSS365 stands for Very Short Story 365, in which case, the name speaks for itself. We all know that Twitter only allows 140 characters. I did not know that this would be plenty to show a snippet of a scene or to at least think of an attention-grabbing scenario.
My first #VSS365 tweet was for the prompt #eat, which I had no problem with. I wrote about devouring pineapple and chicken pizza and how the date my character was with rolled their eyes. Pineapple pizza gets so much hate. I am 100% on the pineapple bandwagon. The latest was for #swing in which I described a character’s life “swinging out of control” as she spray-painted her ex-boyfriend’s car. Not very original but I didn’t want to talk about swing sets or swing dancing.
So far, the tweet I had to think about most was #knee because I couldn’t figure out a non-religious or non-sexual connotation for someone being on their knees unless they were falling to their knees. My character was bringing people to their knees because she was going to follow the monster under the bed.
I enjoy #VSS365 because it gives me something to think about that isn’t my current work in progress or work in general. It doesn’t take longer than a few minutes to come up with something and by no means does anyone expect it to be perfect. I’ve only been on Twitter since August and I only use it for an outlet for my writing. I am new to this whole social media hashtag following. For my first time taking on a Twitter challenge, I am not disappointed.
I enjoy reading tweets that other people have thought up for #VSS365 and I am trying to show as much appreciation as possible. I have to be careful since it would be detrimental to spend all day on twitter knowing I have other writing to critique, my own writing to write and a completely unrelated full-time job. I will be continuing with #VSS365. Maybe I will think of a new plot for a story through these random, short thoughts.
Does anyone else participate in #VSS365 or other hashtags challenges/games? I want to know what creative outlets I am missing out on.
Tag: Writing
I’d Go to a Writing Workshop Again
Today was an eventful day at the 2018 Boston Writing Workshops. I have never attended a workshop related to writing even though I am sure there have been plenty near me since I moved to Massachusetts. I must have inherently known they come here, I think that in the past I have been too closed off to consider even looking them up. Well, not anymore, since my new policy is to do what makes me happy. I now know that writing workshops do, indeed, fit the bill.
I think my fear was that the event would be pretentious. It wasn’t, not one bit. It was laid back, everyone was nice, and the workshops were an hour chock full of encouraging words and insightful questions. I am very glad I attended, and I hope to participate more when I go next time.
Yes, yes – the introvert didn’t just magically go away after 29 years of trying. However, I do feel that I am opening up more in my daily life. The Boston Writing Workshop gave me the opportunity to learn more about a craft I love. I also got to see that there are people in the area that care about writing as well.
One takeaway I had from today is that maybe I shouldn’t discount the possibility of pitching my novel to an agent eventually. There are a lot of nuts and bolts that comes with publishing a book and I really need to explore all my options. Since I will be participating in the 100 Day Book Challenge the second draft of my book, which will be a lot of rewriting, the dream of pitching a book might not be as far away as it seems to be.
I also learned some wisdom today about writing Sci-fi/fantasy. The meaning, and reasons behind the sci-fi/fantasy comes in the second draft. I have been consistently struggling with the meaning and reasoning behind my novel. I will keep fiddling around and see what happens.
Also, someone called me Ma’am today. No, please. Don’t.
To Keep Learning, Always 