Sunday, December 13, 2015

#NovelSnip

#NovelSnip is a tiny portion of my fiction writing project.  I haven't been posting it for awhile because of some factors.  These factors stalled my writing and filled me with self-doubt.  But then, a few circumstances arose that put me back in business.  One of these was that I heard an interview with Lauren Groff, acclaimed author of Arcadia and Fates and Furies.  She shared in the interview that she always works on more than one project at once.  If one project's not going well, she picks up the other.  That seemed smart to me. So, one time during Creative Writing Club at the urging of the sixth graders, I started a new project.  Here's a little bit of it.  Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't. But here it is:

Isobel’s eyelids drooped ominously in the after-school faculty meeting.  A heavy fatigue had dogged her for most of her teaching day, sucking her prep period down a dark hole of scouring the Spanx website for an external solution to the five pounds she'd gained since school started again.

Now, several hours later, her department chair expounded on the importance of using language to foster a democratic learning community. “For example,” Mary continued, a full twenty minutes into her monologue, “an effective teaching strategy is to begin with an open question.”  Isobel pinched her left thigh in an attempt to perk up.  Next to her, Jamie, a twenty-five-year old in the midst of her first year of teaching, drew a sixth row of hearts in her college-ruled spiral notebook. Isobel gave her a sidelong smile, and Jamie rolled her eyes.
I'm so happy because I already have a plot idea for this gal.  Unlike in my Alice project, I know what the inciting incident and major conflict are.  That's gotta make things easier, right? We'll see.


2 comments:

mm said...

A new story!
#novelstrip is back!

Mary said...

Yahoo for #novelsnip!! xoxo