Let's Exercise

On one of my writing loops, specifically The Writer's View, we wrote a short story, and I do mean short. All of six words. Here's mine:

Speeding car. Indecisive squirrel. Crying child.

This could be the skeletal outline for a real short story. And now that I think about it, this is an excellent exercise for brainstorming a novel or developing the pitch. How about a few more:

Oddball teen. Threatens school. Girlfriend squeals.
This is the novel I'm working on for Love Inspired, tentatively called Miranda's Mistake.

or

Groom runs. Years later. Groom returns.
This is my unfinished novel, Her Leap of Faith.

or

False documents. Great job. Public humiliation.
This is my completed novel originally called Reinventing Rita until Hurricane Rita made the name Rita not so popular. :) Now it's called In the Valley of Broken Dreams.

How about this one:

Moving Van. Body in Box. Missing China.
This is my cozy mystery. Mmmmm, leaves a lot to be desired, doesn't it, but actually, this is all I had of an idea when I started writing.

A fun exercise! Try it.

I got some interesting news today about my Chicken Soup for the Chocolate Lovers Soul submission. The person I emailed it to wrote back and said she liked it and had sent it on to the Reader's Manual of finalist stories to be judged by an independent panel of readers. Does that mean it's a finalist? I'll know by the end of April if it's accepted for the book. Interesting process they have.

I didn't write on my novel today, but I did figure out that I need to be writing at least five pages a day for about 20 days. That would give me a little time for a quick read-through with some tweaking. All day today I've been jacking around with the history of ACFW. Why I ever volunteered to be historian I'll never know. Must have had one of my I Love ACFW moments. Oh well. . . live and learn.