I subsequently withdrew this offer when I realised the two grandkiddles could enter and I'm now encouraging them to write a story.
Now most of you will know that I'm more likely to write 5000 or even 50,000 words than 500. Writing just 500 is tough, particularly when it's fiction and needs a beginning, a middle and an end.
And I write very little fiction (thank goodness for that I hear you say). So I thought I would give it a try and write a succession of very short stories. But I decided to make it a bit more difficult by making each story exactly 500 words. Not 499 or 501 but exactly 500.
500 words is less than one side of A4. I started with a re-write of a piece of piffle I wrote years ago. The original was over 3000 words and for this exercise I needed to cut it down to 500. So I completely re-wrote it and it still weighed in at around 540. So I cut 40 words out. I hope you are following this. I then wrote a second story and shaped that into exactly 500 words.
What I'm trying to say is writing a full story in just 500 words is far from easy. In fact it's pretty difficult. But the exciting thing about the exercise is it's as much about formulating ideas and thinking about the story as it is in writing it. After writing two I'm already out of ideas but I'm sure plots will come to me ( probably in the middle of the night).
You can see how difficult writing a story in 500 words is by the fact that at this point this blog amounts to over 300 words and I've virtually said nothing.
A friend of mine who is a good artist decided a few years ago that she would like to do some portrait work. She asked if I would sit for her which I duly did for a morning. I never saw her work as she was so dissatisfied with it that she tore it up.
That's the way I feel about my first two stories in the 500 words. Both have rather a supernatural feel to them and I am hugely dissatisfied with both and just hoping something better will come to me soon. I need inspiration but inspiration in small chunks.
So at the moment I'm not going to release anything to the world, although I will hope to do so at a later time. Well to my bloggettes at any rate.
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Something I was fearing would happen has happened. I refer to a problem with charging points for electric cars. I haven't contemplated going electric to date due to a fear of running out of juice in the middle of nowhere. Having an electric car for pootling about locally is one thing but setting off on a long journey is quite another matter.
Now we hear that there's a kind of road rage over electrical points. And that isn't surprising. The providers are putting terminals in places of high footfall and that means places where people will be squabbling. The providers are tending to ignore quieter more rural areas. So why does none of that surprise me?
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There was an item on national television yesterday morning about attempts to get more children to join their local libraries. Here in Hethersett we have a thriving library with daily events and meetings, a hard working Friends Group and the village post office. Our library really is the hub of the community and long may it remain so. here to edit.