Nothing like the last minute..

When I found myself volunteering to take on an orphaned Love's Landscapes prompt in the middle of June, I knew I would be writing to a tight deadline.... you always do with the Don't Read in the Closet Events... even if you get a prompt on the first possible day, you've at most 8 weeks to write your story.  Now length isn't an object - but these are in the main short stories - my first year's story was just around 14,000, last year's grew to 18,000 and my first this year was just shy of 30,000...

This time I had six weeks to complete the story.... but it also involved a lot of research.. this is not naturally my historical period to play in (whereas the first story this year was)... and to be honest I knew next to nothing about The Enlightenment and Paris in the 1750's or there about.... so the first three weeks were something of a crash course in the period.

When I started writing nothing was working, I mean seriously nothing.  I had characters that felt wooden and their conversation stilted... so I sent it to a couple of my betas... who spotted something I hadn't......... my characters were flirting with each other! So I built on that... and kept going....

The deadline is Tuesday.... I finished the story this evening....... it came in at 15,149 words on the first draft.. it's a lot lighter than most things I've written and does contain some comedy moments... wig abandonment, improper use of a chaise longue, laundry theft....  I am hoping that my prompter likes the story - after all they are really the only one who really counts, sure to have others like it would be good but really I am writing for an audience of one.

I need to read it and edit tomorrow night, get my betas to rip it up a bit and send it back so I can tidy it up before sending it in to the event on Tuesday - thank goodness that the organisers are in the US and I get a few extra hours!

And now, having finished this one, I am seriously considering a Christmas story for an open submission call.... trouble is... the deadline for that is 1st August.... see last minute.com... that would be me then!