This is my fourth summary of Story A Day stories that I’ve done this month. I track what I write each day (along with writing-adjacent activities) in a notebook (this one, which is, for me, the perfect mix of structured/unstructured), but I have been finding this weekly-ish summary to be rather useful.
I do try to post a weekly accountability post in the Superstars slack (Story A Day’s private community), but expanding on what I have accomplished like I have been in these posts puts it in more context for me. Thinking about these stories, having to summarize briefly what I wrote about, is giving me ideas about them and where I might submit them.
So! What I’ve been writing!
The September 19 prompt, Michele E. Reisinger Sends You Thrifting, led me to write another book-related story (although I won’t have anything done for the call for submissions these were originally, tentatively for).
This story was about a pair of (maybe humans?) who find a novel in an antiques shop on a distant world. This find is complicated by the prohibitions on entertainment in the society they come from and their divergent reactions to the book.
For the prompt on day 20, Windy Lynn Harris Is Making Me Peckish, I wrote another one of my novella-prequel-backstory pieces, this time about the now-distant-from-Earth now-all-but-immortal Travelers experimenting with replicating the foods they were accustomed to back on Earth. This was fun and gave me greater insight into, not only the two main characters I’ve been writing about, but how their small society has developed over a very long time period.
The September 21 prompt, C McKane is Reflective, resulted in me writing another death story. (In fairness, I’ve been wanting to submit something to The Deadlands, so I have some slight reason for this current/recurring preoccupation.)
The story I ended up with was a vague and dreamy one from the point of view of someone in the process of dying, or moving through the bardo (as I said, it is kind of vague, even to me).
After I wrote it, I realized i was thinking of Connie Willis’ “Passage” (a book I highly recommend) to some extent.
On September 22, the prompt was Soleah Sadge Turns Tarot Cards and I wrote a story that incorporates all the suggested parts (a souffle, banging on a door, three antique keys, and a tarot card!) and begins on Mars but ends up with a weird humour-fantasy angle. It technically has an ending, but as I work on it (and I do plan to return to this one), I think this ‘ending’ will be about a 1/3 of the way into the story.
The day 23 prompt was I’ve Got A Little List and I did indeed write a list story, one that I called “What to do before the coronal mass ejection reaches Earth.” I like the title better than the story I ended up with, which kept going off in stream of consciousness tangents. It ended up kind of sweet? In a way.
And on September 24, for the Fleet Sparrow Sings A Song prompt, I wrote a Gilligan’s Island-type story set on the Moon. I have been toying with this idea (although previous versions have been on Mars) for awhile and I think this one is the closest to useable so far. But it is still barely a story and I actually ended it where, in retrospect, it probably should have started, but! this is definitely something to develop further.
And that’s all for now! Take care.
Monique Cuillerier 