Well… that could have gone better.
And I’m sure it would have gone better if I’d gone in a bit more prepared.
I was aiming for 25,000 words over Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I ended up with closer to 10,000. Which is not awesome… but I’m okay with it.
My plan had been to spend Friday reacquainting myself with the paranormal circus story I started ages ago and then Saturday get to work on that. I’d hoped to finish it up and then begin another story in the paranormal circus series. Alas, I didn’t get that reacquainting done, and besides, I reasoned, it was probably better to start something new so I could build up some momentum rather than ramping down on a story that’s nearly finished already.
It sounded reasonable at the time. Still does, actually. The thing is though… I had no idea what the ‘new story’ was going to be about. None at all.
So I consulted my notes for the paranormal circus stories (aka: a smattering of Post-it notes stuck on my bedroom door), took a couple down and tried to jam them together into a story.
It worked, eventually. The story that is coming together as a result is one that I quite like, but it took a long time to get there. I’m going to have to cut about the first 4,000 words I wrote, and there’s a long, long way to go on this tale yet, but I have something. Which is more than I started with on Saturday.
I also have a wee bit of a streak. Over the past three days I’ve written for at least an hour. I’m going to see just how long I can keep that streak up. Given that I write longhand an hour doesn’t add up to a whole lot of words (somewhere between 500 and 2,500 of them, depending on how well the story is flowing) but it adds up to some. And the next hour adds up to some more.
Every little bit counts, is what I’m saying.
And this paranormal circus idea has begun to grow wings. I think it’s going to be a wee bit… uh… I think huge is the word I’m looking for. I’m excited about it and I want to block out some time just for it. And one hour a day feels like a doable number. So we’ll see.
I also picked up a couple story prompts this weekend, which I’m pretty excited about. You can see them here. That page will also tell you how you can send me your own prompt.
I’ve already turned the lady in the green dress into a vampire named Natalie, and I think the text prompt may form the basis of a great Christmas story. We’ll see… my subconscious is still chewing on it!
Gun to My Head by Dira Lewis
Read Bottom Up by Neel Shah and Skye Chatham 
An Unattractive Vampire by Jim McDoniel
Sublime by Christina Lauren
The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles
Sara Dobie Bauer is a writer, model, and mental health advocate with a creative writing degree from Ohio University. Her short story, “Don’t Ball the Boss,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, inspired by her shameless crush on Benedict Cumberbatch. She lives with her hottie husband and two precious pups in Northeast Ohio, although she’d really like to live in a Tim Burton film. She is a member of RWA and author of the paranormal rom-com Bite Somebody, among other ridiculously entertaining things.
With the release of kINKED and my short story “Painted Red,” I add another story to my ever-growing list of erotic short fiction flying free in the world. I wasn’t always like this. I used to write pretty PG-13. Then, I got older and stopped caring so much about what people thought. I started writing what I wanted to write … and apparently, I wanted to write about sex.
About the author: Sara Dobie Bauer is a writer, model, and mental health advocate with a creative writing degree from Ohio University. Her short story, “Don’t Ball the Boss,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, inspired by her shameless crush on Benedict Cumberbatch. She lives with her hottie husband and two precious pups in Northeast Ohio, although she’d really like to live in a Tim Burton film. She is author of the paranormal rom-com Bite Somebody, among other ridiculously entertaining things. Learn more at 
