Good afternoon friends and faithful readers. It’s once again my Saturday in the barrel here at SS&S, wherein we try to come to you with some little glimpse into our “writing lives”. Sometimes that means giving you our interpretations of the elements that go into not just our novel, but any novel. Sometimes it means sharing pieces of our work in progress, whether it be discussions on character development or part of a scene.

writing, writing life, S. A. Young, short story, Saturday, challenge

Or, as was the case with C. C. Cedras’ short story “Interlude” or K.R. Brorman’s short story, “Stay”, it means sharing with you a completed project, a piece of writing that’s not only, at least in these two cases, been painstakingly honed and polished, but allows you an even closer look at who we are as writers and as people.  Style begins to emerge, certainly, as do flashes of what’s important to us. For instance, “Stay”, in my (admittedly biased) opinion, is gorgeously crafted and unabashedly romantic. The hero possesses a quiet strength and chivalrous nature that would be just as at home on the banks of a Scottish loch as the plains of West Texas.

writing, writing life, S. A. Young, short story, Saturday, challenge, Virginia Woolf

In spite of all that, or more than likely because of it, we three struggle with topics for our Saturday posts. It’s a lot easier to tell you a funny story or share pics of our traveling companions, but what we do on Saturday feels more important, these posts are another Lego in our platform-under-construction. Doing a little brainstorming with C.C. Cedras the other day, we came up with a couple of ideas.  The first was that I could take a scene that’s already written, that may or may not make it into book three, polish it up and deliver it to you.

writing, writing life, S. A. Young, short story, Saturday, challenge, Arthur Ashe

The second idea was to, instead, take a scene and expand it, maybe even take it in another direction entirely, and turn it into a short story.  Of the two, this is by far the scarier option, but it is the one I’ve chosen.

writing, writing life, S. A. Young, short story, Saturday, challenge, scary, Holly Gerth

I’ll make this short and sweet, since I have not yet decided with which scene I’m going to attempt this swan-dive-with-a-full-twist-off-the-high-board. But, just the fact that I’ve written down this plan is a first step and I’ve obviously hit “publish” if you’re reading it, so that’s step two. I will be accountable to you, gentle reader, as well as to C. C. and K. R.

writing, writing life, S. A. Young, short story, Saturday, challenge, swan dive

According to the people who make “Post-it Notes”, if you write something down, you’re 42% more likely to make it happen.  So here goes: Saturday September 10 is my next turn at bat. I will have the first part of a short story ready to share with you. I can’t tell you today, how many parts that I’ll end up with, since I don’t yet know where I’m heading, but, hopefully, we’ll get there together.

 

 

 

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