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How many of the alotted 24 hours did you use?

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MagsWrites View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MagsWrites Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Oct 2021 at 11:23pm
Not entirely sure. I know at noon EST I was sitting in my car waiting for a tow truck to arrive as my husband's car had decided to not start just after having it's oil changed. 

At that point I had three spectacularly craptastic ideas in my head and I was starting to freak out. 

At 1pm I was driving us (spawn and hubs) all back to the house from the garage where we had dropped his car at -  still plotless, still panicking, AND feeling particularly comedically challenged with each passing second. 

I think it was around 2pm that I texted a bunch of friends and family a metric ton of word vomit with what wound up being my final plot. Then immediately went to sleep for a few hours due to a migraine. (thanks stress and panic attacks) 

I was back at the laptop around 4pm, moved the word vomit over to Word, looked at my word count, swore in several languages with great fluency (thanks for that Mom!) and began the slash and burn of editing while attempting to maintain a story of no more than 250 words of said word mush. 

It was probably around 9pm EST when I hit the submit button. 

It was a minute after hitting submit that I realized while I had accomplished quite a bit with my 250 words, all the editing had cut out the "funny" which made my obscure plot topic of choice relatable the general masses was currently sitting in my editing trash pile. 

So -

In NOT 250 words or less - I turned in a tightly edited, 250 word ramble, regarding a subject that very few people may understand to begin with, and which absolutely many will not understand otherwise.

Ergo, It is what it is. 
I came, I saw, I wrote.... and I believe my journey this year will be ending extremely soon. 

Group 66 - Comedy. Calling a Hotline. 

Apparently I need a Hotline to walk me through remembering to write to my audience - Creative Writing 101 First day of lessons.TongueEmbarrassed
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote iress Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2021 at 12:06am
Originally posted by MagsWrites MagsWrites wrote:

Ergo, It is what it is. 
I came, I saw, I wrote....

Just reading the narrative of your writing journey makes me look forward to reading your story.  Seriously, if it’s even half as detailed and intriguing it is bound to be a standout. Congrats on getting your story in after all that! 😁
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dreamfired Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2021 at 5:01am
Time spent:

Well I take part with a little group of friends and we do a brunch call to chat through ideas and an evening call to critique. This time the brunch call had bad wifi so drifted into two seperate calls...

They took up about 1.5 hours but to be honest not that much of the chat stays on topic.

Ideas mulling happened during other activities of the day rather than dedicated time (with the Flash, ideas generation was much more active and focused and included research so had a time). 0 hours really

Moral dilemma of writing that has to include Police (action - running from the Police) without wanting to normalise the status quo of police forces and yet needing to stay action advention genre. At least 1 hour of discombulation.

Draft 1: 40 minutes
Draft 2: 15 minutes
Endless redrafting of the final paragraph whilst also handling the Submittable window: 1 hour

Total time: depends what you include really.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Eli9 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2021 at 6:09am
Originally posted by Man of Ulster Man of Ulster wrote:

I spent a lot of time. Initially, I wrote down all the ideas that sprang to mind, dismissed most, then started writing up what was left. At about 2 hours I had 4 stories, 2 of which I dumped as utter cliché, one that is sort of drama, but might get me DQed for writing a thriller, and one of which was too weird to count as drama.

Spent most of the afternoon away with my SO, as it was her birthday, then came back to trim, trim, trim for a couple of hours. I'd say about 6-7 hours all in.

If I do get through I have a nice weird story I can use for an Open Genre, assuming I can tweak it for a new action and word assignment.

So, like, I really want to read your "too weird to count as drama". Clap
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote C.C. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2021 at 9:52am
Originally posted by APDiggs APDiggs wrote:


I'm group 11 too.  Rom Com!  I'm a scifi/horror guy.  Esh!.

I took the 15th off to participate only to find that it was the 15th to 16th.  Had date night with my wife and friends the 16th so I didn't have much time.

I spent the morning of the 16th working on 7 different stories. 

So, maybe 5 hours?

Hello fellow group member! Yes! Rom Com was a hard assignment for me too. Here's hoping we both get through and draw scifi!

That sucks about being so good to put it on the calendar the day before! Sounds like something I would do. But all's well that ends well...looking forward to reading your submission. This is my first time...I wonder, DO we get to read the other submissions???
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ZoeLou Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2021 at 10:34am
Originally posted by C.C. C.C. wrote:

 This is my first time...I wonder, DO we get to read the other submissions???

Yep! That’s the best part of the forums ;) 

Sometime today/tomorrow (depending on your time zone haha) we should get an email saying our entries have been accepted and giving us permission to share them! Aaaand then you’ll see the forums explode in a frenzy of posting / reading / giving feedback as everyone shares their stories! (If you want to - there’s no obligation to post).

Just make sure if you do post yours that you add it to the private subforum (it doesn’t exist yet but will be titled something along the lines of 250 Microfiction 2021). That means it’s only able to be viewed by other forums members, and isn’t considered “published” in case you end up using it elsewhere.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote northernwriter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Oct 2021 at 10:36am
I’m in Alaska so the prompts drop at 8PM for me on Friday. I usually brainstorm, get an idea, then sleep on it. Then I write the next day but not all day. 
Microfiction 2021: 4th place overall
Flash Fiction 2020: 8th place overall
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Stephaniepl205 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Oct 2021 at 12:34pm
I started jotting my initial thoughts down right after I saw what I was assigned at midnight and got some (very bad) preliminary works done by about 2:00am. The whole next day I just thought about it. 
My dad had a heart attack the day before so I was in and out of the hospital and my brain wasn't 100% focused on my short story. 
By about 8:30pm I was able to sit back down and something entirely new had worked its way into my head. I submitted just before 11:00pm. 
So all in all about 5-6 hours of actual writing. Less than I had hoped to get into it but for the circumstances I was happy :)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jackal51 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Oct 2021 at 3:16pm
I didn't realize when I signed up for the contest that I would be traveling on the writing day. Additionally, I didn't take my laptop with me. So, I got my prompts at midnight, called my writer son to share them and kick around an idea or two, and went to sleep praying for prompt-inspired dreams. In the morning, I wrote longhand in a notebook for a couple hours with starts on a couple different stories. Finally selected one and did a draft. I had entered the 100-word contest twice, but this was my first 250-word contest. Fortunately, my draft was only slightly over the word limit. About 10 hours in the middle of the day was consumed with travel. Back home, I finished up in about 2 hours. So, I guess active time about 5 hours, but lots of thinking time too. (BTW, though it seems longer, this reply comes in at only 159 words)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mea Anders Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Oct 2021 at 3:58pm
I had an exceptionally busy weekend, and didn't have a chance to start writing until late in the day.  In fact, I wasn't sure I'd be able to submit anything, but managed to get it in on deadline. 🥵
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