by M.E. Proctor
I don’t know what’s more rampant on the web: writing advice or weight loss tips. They have common features. An authoritarian tone — Don’t do this! Do that ! — and a shine of expertise. I confess, I’m better at dismissing fad diets and miracle exercise routines than articles that pretend to help me write a killer first sentence. It’s no surprise that I’m always disappointed. If there was a foolproof trick, all scribblers would use it.
A few years ago, I found an article that quoted snippets of Ray Bradbury’s advice on writing. It was so good I bookmarked it (here is the link). In various interviews and keynote addresses, he dropped pearls like “Don’t think,” “You can’t write for other people,” and “In quickness is truth” — I often think about that one when I have a looming deadline and no idea where the story is going. One nugget of wisdom, in particular, stuck with me. At a writing symposium, Bradbury recommended writing one story a week for a year, commenting that it was impossible to write 52 bad ones. “I defy you,” he said. “Can’t be done.” There would inevitably be a few gems among the droppings.
I had been writing short stories on and off for years, but a 52-week challenge was daunting. Could I come up with a story idea every week for an entire year? Wouldn’t inspiration dry out? There was no word count requirement, but still.
I gave it a go, and the experience was worth it. I made two attempts. Last year and this one. Both times I stumbled after 20 weeks — January to May. Life and travel interfered. Am I disappointed? Not a bit. Because Ray Bradbury was right. You cannot write bad stuff consistently for 20 weeks (he was cautious with his 52). A few stories were thin. Most were solid and have since been published. And some really stand out.
Here are a few that are included in the collection Family and Other Ailments – Crime Stories Close to Home (Wordwooze Publishing, 2023).
“Rabbits.” The story is told from the perspective of Jake, a twelve-year-old boy who struggles with recurrent nightmares that are shreds of traumatic memories. Little by little, he puts the pieces together, and the truth emerges. This story verifies another Bradbury principle: our childhood is an infinite source of inspiration, and the more you scratch at it, the more you remember. Jake’s story is entirely fictional, but the white rabbits aren’t. They belonged to my grandfather, and I fed them lettuce. I see them clearly. I might have been four years old.
“Spy Head.” A retired cop meets once a year with the kid whose life he saved, on the same date and at the exact location of that rescue, a pavilion on top of a dune. Their conversation avoids, then wraps around the event that brought them together. This is another piece from the childhood repository. I know that pavilion in the dunes. I climbed up there often. When Billy says that it doesn’t look so high anymore, he speaks my thoughts. Things always look bigger and higher when you’re small.
“Double Trouble.” A woman finds out her boyfriend is two people: him and the brother she didn’t know he had, and who happens to be dead. It’s funny and a mind twister, and I had a lot of fun writing it. The story was nominated for a Derringer Award. No childhood memories here. I started with a mistaken identity plot. It didn’t go anywhere, and I shredded it. Or, as Bradbury said, if you’re blocked “stop what you’re doing and write something else.” I kept the character names, put them in an apartment, and wrote the line: “Gail wants Rog to kill me.” It went from there.
There are 26 stories in Family and Other Ailments. They were not all written during my two feverish stints. I did not stop hammering at my keyboard after the pretty month of May ended. I just wasn’t ruled by the calendar anymore. And some of the stories in the collection were written well before I found out about the 52-week experiment.
It’s fitting that “Apples in the Attic,” the story that led one early reader to comment that “comparisons to the great Ray Bradbury cannot be ignored” was one of these outliers, leisurely penned during one hot month of July. I used to spend the best part of summer at my grandmother’s house, where, yes, apples were stored in the attic, and laundry was hung up there to dry on rainy days. Everything else in the story is completely made up … almost everything else.
I’ve heard writers say that they don’t put anything of themselves in their stories. I doubt that very much. The stuff we write has to come from somewhere. Childhood, life events, loves, dislikes, the people we meet, and the books we read. It’s all there for the picking.
Family and Other Ailments is available in e-book, paperback, and audiobook. Click here to see all available formats.
Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. A new episode went up last week.
You can use this link to purchase the book. If you have ad blocker on you may not see the Amazon link. You can also click here to purchase the book.
Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.
0 Comments