OK, so the first day of
camp went well. I hit 2,902. At this rate, with the goal of 50K words, it says
I will be done by July 18th; which is good because my real goal is 85K, but I
was too scared to put that into the word count meter.
At camp, you are
assigned a cabin, and they just added the last cabin mate to my cabin. I don't
know any of them, even though I did try to request a few writers I knew who
were participating. When they chose cabin mates for you, they were supposed to
do people your age and/or who write in the same genre. Of the three who are
actually doing anything, one is a young mom who doesn't know what she's writing
yet, and the other two are doing some kind of funky sci-fi stuff. So far, I
have nothing in common with any of them. The whole idea behind assigning cabins
is for the writers to get support and encouragement from others who are
experiencing the same insanity as you, but to be plopped into a group where you
have nothing in common with any of the people, I think, is counterproductive. I
guess we’ll just have to wait and see. There are four more cabin mates who
haven’t checked in yet. Maybe one of them will be a better “rah-rah”, because I
sure as heck don’t want to be the rah-rah for the group!
Your Last Challenge
was:
Make a story using the following three words: raccoon,
party, mouse.
While preparing for a big party at our
house, I kept hearing a strange noise, but the only time the noise would occur
was when I was making some type of noise; moving things, rustling papers, banging
pots, vacuuming, etc. When I stopped to try and listen to where the noise was
coming from, the noise would stop. It was very frustrating.
Finally, after hours of this cat and
mouse game, the noise occurred again and was followed by a substantial thump.
Ah ha! The garage, or more specifically, the wall between the garage and the
family room. Great, just what I needed before a party. Some critter stuck in my
wall, and I could tell by the thump, it wasn’t a little critter. Although, I
probably needed my head examined for doing it, I went out into the garage to investigate.
What I thought I was going to do with the critter if I actually found it, I
still don’t know, but off I went, broom in hand.
No holes that I could see. Lovely, now
I have to pull stuff away from the wall, as if I had time for this with a
houseful of guests coming. I lay down my broom and start moving junk from the
general vicinity of the noise. One thing on my side, the critter wasn’t being
shy any longer, so I pretty much knew where he was.
I located the source or the thud. A
medal sign which normally hung over the tool box was now flush against the wall behind
the tool box. At least the monster was on wheels, so I was able to push it out
of the way. I then retrieved my broom and made sure there was a clear path
between the sign and the open garage door. At the last second, I donned some
heavy leather work gloves, mustered up all my courage, and slowly pried the
sign away.
Sure enough, there was a hole behind
the sign and within seconds, a tiny masked face popped through the hole. The
face looked up at me, blinked a couple of times, looked over at the open garage
door and started a slow meander towards freedom. Just as he reached the exit,
the raccoon stopped, turned around, sat up on his back legs and looked straight
at me as if to say “thank-you”, then he scampered off.
Wow, guess camp has already gotten me
into a habit of writing quickly. (I did go back and add the separated paragraphs
after the ten minutes, because it was just one big blob when time was up.)
Your Next Challenge is:
You literally get sucked into the book you were reading.
You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong,
just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to
criticize what someone else has written. Go.
