I’ve been a long time lurker on the Write Anything website. They have a lot of good articles on writing and every once and a while they post these fun little exercises.

I’ve normally just done them off-line, but I thought I would share this one.

The point of this exercise was to write a 10 line story about two estranged family members coming together after a long time. The story had to be 10 sentences long – max. Not only that, but each sentence had a prompt for it. They are broken down like this:

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This week is a week of firsts for me. My first spoken word story and now my first entry into this wonderful weekly event #FridayFlash (PS: if you’re looking for some great free flash fiction online, search #FridayFlash on Twitter every Friday).

My story this week is called “Shiny” and it has a cameo from a Steampunk Airship Captain that has been haunting my dreams for the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure if the story itself could be classified as Steampunk but that’s were I’ve put it.

Oh and if you would like to listen to this story instead of reading it, you can listen to it below:
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Hello world. Long time no chat.

What better way to start off a come back (1: Yes I’m married now, 2: no I won’t be changing my name, 3: no, I do love my husband I just like Hunter, 4: keep it up and I will come over there) than by offering something for free.

To start, it seems like all the cool kids (other writers I know) have taken up with this new social site called “Audioboo” where it allows you to record a 5 minute snippet and post it online. I thought I would start my very first “boo” with a short story.

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I woke this morning to two realizations.

One:  I haven’t posted anything on my blog in well over a month, and

Two: I have an unreasonable urge to write.

The remedy to number one is of course to post something, but number two is a little more complicated since for the first time in a very long time I’m finding it hard to “find the time” to write.

I’ve always believed that “I have no time” was a poor excuse for not writing. If you really want something you will make the time, end of line. I won’t use that excuse. Instead I will say, I’m finding it hard to make writing a priority in my busy schedule.

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So I’ve been taking part in a few laughable activities over the last few days. First a quiz.

QUIZ: Which science fiction writer are you?

I am: Ursula K. LeGuin Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

I’m actually really flattered by this quiz result.

Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels (including the Earthsea Series), eleven volumes of short stories, three collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards.

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4 years ago, on August 23 2006, I started blogging. It was a way of telling the universe that I was committed to writing – for real this time.

I started on blogger, and you can read from the beginning up until August 2008 (when I moved to WordPress) @ http://dustandstrangerthings.blogspot.com/ – but only until the end of January when I’ll finally be taking it down.

That first post was anything but elegant, but it made it’s point:

So why start a blog?

I know people who have blogs. Many people who have them say they are a good release for what goes on in their lives. Others, who I’m sure I’ll relate to more, say it’s a good excuse to not write.

You see I’m an author. No, I’m not published yet, but stranger things have happened. I’m part of a writing group, I try to write part of my novel everyday, and I’m serious about what I’m writing… doesn’t that make me an author?

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