Ex Loc
It's been a busy week on the word front since I returned from the writer's workshop in Oregon. Lots of ideas have been floating about my head while I been trying to get back to the "routine." Wrote the first draft of two stories this week and spent most of today (when I wasn't playing with Solomon) working on the kinks of the first one and have probably overworked it. I've also realized why the second one doesn't work at its current length and what I'll need to do to make it work (cut about 1500 words and completely rewrite 75% of what is left). I've got two old stories that might actually be salvageable: one will become an Empire City story which will solve some of its problems and the other is a really old piece which I never tried to do anything with of a core detail which would have -- I always thought -- made it unsellable. Turns out I might be wrong.
Jay Lake has a cool writing exercise that he does to keep his fingers active: Story Word. People submit words to him and he, in return, generates very short fiction around the word. There's a new one every day and he works hard to make sure that his word junkies don't miss their fix.
I don't need another intensive deadline like that around here, but the idea of doing a very short piece to keep the writing muscles flexed isn't a bad one. I'm also dealing with a reoccurring word echo problem that I have in my writing. It's partly due to having a smooth brain without enough ridges, so these will be useful to me in expanding my vocabulary as well as giving me a chance to just try some stylistic things. So, they'll start showing up here in the writing section. The goal will be do one on days when I haven't gotten any other writing done or, as in the case of yesterday, when most of the writing was done in editing mode. They'll be archived in the writing section as either "Ex Loc" (extemporaneous locution) or "Nudis Verbis" ('in naked words') since "Story Word" has been so cleverly taken.
The first one is called "Excoriate."
I am, of course, receptive to any word you think I should know how to use.