Saturday 27 January 2018

New Beginnings

Six long years ago I was taking my first tentative steps towards writing fiction. In order to help improve my skills I entered a writing competition called "The Smut Marathon". It was actually a huge amount of fun and I discovered some superb erotic writers as a result of it. At the time I managed to write a reasonable number of pieces of flash fiction and even self published a small collection in Kindle format before losing focus.

What makes me mention this now is that after a four year hiatus I am beginning to write again. My first steps are slow and  steady but the fact I am taking them is a good start. This time I aim to stick at it for a bit longer and will not be stopping until I have a finished (paper) book in my hands. So, one small step at a time I am getting back into the swing of creating things.

In order to kick start my writing habit I have entered a new "Smut Marathon" and this starts with the first task tomorrow! Looking at the massive list of entrants (89 of us) I have become aware of just how rusty I am so I decided to look through some of the challenges we were set last time and see what I would do now. One task was to create a 200 word character introduction so I've found my original submission and edited it into something that I might create now whilst sticking to the rules. My character was called "The Book Worm" and having tweaked it, I think I'm going to write the story I always intended to.

This was my original submission:

Michael yawned and rubbed his eyes. Getting up early to write before work was helping him to knuckle down and develop his book but it was hard work. The chapter he’d just finished had been based on his exploits with a previous girlfriend and the memory always caused a rush of blood to his groin, today was no exception. Standing up, he stretched and crossed his apartment, heading for the shower. He glanced in the full length mirror as he passed and paused to reflect on the naked image it revealed. His new fitness regime was definitely working, his stomach whilst still not a six pack was noticeably flatter and showing some signs of muscle tone, his shoulders were broader and his arms and legs were no longer the weak, skinny things he’d had for most of his life.

Getting there” he thought.

Cycling to work was getting easier, he locked his bike and as he climbed the stone steps he realised he didn’t even get out of breath anymore. Things were definitely looking up. He smiled to himself as he pushed open the doors and the familiar smell of massed books welcomed him like a warm embrace.

-----------

This is how I would write the same thing now:

Michael yawned and rubbed his eyes. The discipline of rising early to write before work was helping him shake off the inertia of too many idle years but was far from easy. The chapter he’d just finished had been loosely based on real events and replaying the memory and playing ‘what if’ with the action while he wrote it had caused a rush of blood to his groin and an aching need to find someone.

Standing up, he stretched and crossed his apartment, heading for the shower, glancing in the full length mirror as he passed, pausing to reflect on the naked image it revealed. His new fitness regime was definitely working. His stomach whilst still not a six pack was showing promising signs of muscle tone, his shoulders were broader and his arms and legs were no longer the weak, spindly things he’d had for most of his life.

Getting there” he thought.

Cycling to work was no longer the chore it had seemed at first and he barely broke a sweat these days. He smiled to himself and as he pushed open the doors the familiar smell of old books welcomed him like a warm embrace.
-----------
OK, so 200 words is not very much but it's enough that I can see some changes and I also want to see where this character takes me. Come back next week and there should be a story here.

If you're interested, here is a link to this years Smut Marathon so you can see the vast array of talent that I'm thrilled to be included with. I just hope I can create something that I'm happy with.
http://smut.rebelsnotes.com/2018/01/participants/



No comments:

Post a Comment