See, this is what happens when it's a bit slow at the Day Job -- I start messing around with goofy story ideas. In today's case, I had just wanted to type in the story idea I'd gotten last week from the Young Writers Workshop I'm helping teach, and now I have the rough draft of a complete story!

I followed the same creation process that I presented to my students -- on the first day of class they had to write down three story ideas on separate pieces of paper. Each slip of paper needed a character, a setting, and a conflict -- my three were "An alien takes the wrong bus and ends up at an ancient castle," "An astronaut forgets his helmet while exploring Mars" (hey, I was brainstorming, okay?), and this idea: "An old, retired orc moves into the cave of his orc son and mean orc family." Silly ideas, I know. But you gotta start somewhere.

So the next day the students threw their three ideas into a hat and everyone got to choose 3 story ideas, or they could use their own. I used the orc idea and scribbled out a page, long-hand in class on Tuesday. It was fun, and I was actually surprised at how fast the words came (it's been a while since I've written a story, I've been so focused on novels).

Then we talked about plotting our stories, and I did just like my students and plotted out my story on a plot graph (with rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution). Some of the concepts were a bit over the heads of the younger kids, but I think everyone got the basic idea.

And bam, I had my story outlined. I started playing around with it this morning, only planning on typing in what I'd written so far and then adding my notes from the outline, but then I started adding a scene and some dialog here and there, and just like that, I've got a 1600-word story.

The plan is to have the students read their stories out loud this week in class, and have the other students make comments like in a workshop (focusing on the positive, of course), and I plan on using my story about Gambogoggle the retired orc as a guinea pig -- I'll read it and let the students critique me first. We'll see how it goes! I'm hoping they can focus on the positive and give meaningful comments. If not, well, lesson learned!

This story, by the way, is geared toward a Young Adult audience, as if the names and ideas alone aren't enough of a tip-off for you. :)

I'm just ready for Friday and the weekend. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I'm tired! Later.

Today's Words:
1,200

Words for '03:
94,200

Today's Quote:
“Come back to the cave!” she cried. “With Graggenglub gone off to fight in the war, I can’t keep the two monsters -- I mean my boys -- in line! They keep tackling me and dragging me into the mud! Come back, I beg you!”

I stared at her, unable to believe my ears. This was the same woman who had tossed me out of her cave without so much as a goodbye. She had let two goblins bring my stuff over to my new cave, and the goblins had stolen most of my valuables, like my golden nose ring, my iron boots, and my lucky elf-smacking club.

“No thanks,” I told her. I didn’t even bother shouting.