Contest Practice, topic: Murder in the Igloo

I was able to get a little farther tonight, at least it felt that way. I was also able to get all the words in this time, and even before the halfway point, I think. I also increased my word count by almost 100 words, which is absolutely true even though it sounds like CRAZY TALK. Wonder if that'll be a continuing trend or if it was just a fluke.

Ending is rushed, but... serviceable, I guess. I liked the way this one turned. Today's prompt was given to me by Jemi Fraser, via a comment on Monday's entry. Thanks for helping me practice for the contest, Jemi! I really appreciate it. Her prompts were:

Topic: Murder in the Igloo
Words: snow, blubber, knife, bear, sun
Leadoff sentence: see below (first sentence)

Did you know polar bears are all left handed?

The Inuit trader's words echoed in Reese's head as he worked his way across the snow from the sled to the igloo's nearly-buried entrance.

I found that out the hard way, the man had said, back in the last town before the ice cap took over what little lush tundra was left in this late month of November.

Reese had stopped to stock up on supplies, buying a new range knife and half a pound of blubber to feed to his dogs. While he was there, the one-eyed fur trader had decided to get friendly and strike up a conversation about bear hunting.

But Reese wasn't interested in hunting bears. He was a hunter of men.

He'd followed the blazing trail laid down by the sun across the icepack for the last sixteen hours. Disorienting, how it just hovered on the lip of the horizon like a rolling, bloody eyeball.

What was it the trader had told him? "I took the bear's right paw, that was the custom," the man had said in his strange accent. "He was a man-eater. But it angers the spirits to kill such a great animal. Better to take its paw so it may have the chance to live, and have learned to stay away from men."

Bullshit is what it sounded like to Tom Reese, but the farther he got out here the more he thought about the bear in the trader's story and how it reminded him of Garrity, the man he'd come all the way out here to kill.

He'd lost his arm in the firefight, but that wasn't enough for Montano. The old man had sent Reese to the end of the world to finish the job of silencing the traitor forever.

Reese pulled himself back to the present, crunching across the pink-tinted snow. Garrity wasn't here, he was sure, but there would be something here that led him to Garrity. He was very close now.

Which was all the more reason to be careful.

The bear took my eye, the trader whispered in Reese's memory as he began to methodically clear the igloo's entrance. He could have taken my life. I was lucky.

Lucky, Reese thought, and that was exactly the moment when the yellow, furred paw burst out of the snow beyond the opening and clawed across the back of his arm.

Reese jerked backward in surprise, barely feeling the ragged gouges in his flesh. Blood poured over the nylon of his blue parka, but he was oblivious.

All thought was lost to him when he saw the creature pulling itself out of the snow, widening the hole he'd made.

Garrity must have left it for me, he thought, horrified. Days ago.

And God, it must be hungry.

I wrote the last three paragraphs of that in a literal frenzy. This is bare, unedited stuff, let me tell ya. I could barely read my chicken-scratch. And my hand was KILLIN ME, friends. Still, it felt good to get it done. I want to keep doing this as much as I can, because it's REALLY good practice. I want to have this process down pat before I go to Vegas.

Gonna have to take the timer out of the equation because I keep staring at it, and I want to start getting a feel for how long fifteen minutes is without constantly looking at the timer to see how much time's left. Wonder if they'll let us keep a watch?

If you'd like to leave me a challenge, please feel free. What did you think of this one?

Contest Practice, topic: The Living Dead

Howdy. Thanks to those who submitted a few prompts for contest practice for me yesterday! I have the first attempt ready. I definitely need to practice more at this. I managed to get about two paragraphs from the end. Right now, I'm just going to post what I was able to write. I may try to finish it later.

I chose Cruella Collett's prompt first, mainly because it was the first one to hit my inbox. Her prompts were:

Topic: The living dead
Words: shortcut, bushel, fist, tureen, mangrove
Leadoff sentence: see below (first sentence)

"Don't look back!" Gerda Aldrin said, as the last conscious look in her eyes faded into a blank stare of nothingness.

Christopher choked back a sob and transferred his baby sister to his other arm. They'd been running for nearly thirty-six hours now, and Elsa was heavy for a two-year-old. Christopher was exhausted.

And he was only eleven.

"Come on," he said to his sister. She blinked at him with sleepy eyes.

"Ma?" she asked.

"No, mom has to stay here," he said, and the black reality of that truth rolled over him like a boulder made of fear. He switched her to the other arm again - it wasn't much of a help - and pushed past the mangrove trees, on into the deeper swamp as quickly as he could.

Before their mother had a chance to open her eyes again and reach out for her children, dead fingers clutching, teeth clicking together like the ball bearings in Christopher's broken skateboard.

An hour later, Christopher gently lay his baby sister down on a dry hummock of swamp grass and looked around. He'd been sure this was some kind of shortcut, but now in the darkness - and through the shifting gray scrim of exhaustion threatening to bludgeon him into unconsciousness - everything looked the same. He sat down beside Elsa and punched at the ground, not realizing how mucky it was.

A hand closed over his fist.

Christopher jerked backward, eyes popping, mouth drawn down into a silent scream. He kicked at the mound rising out of the squelchy black mud. Eyes opened in the dirt, one bleary with mud, the other a clear and questioning blue. The bump of its rising head looked like an upside-down soup tureen, handles for ears, smooth dome of brow curving back for what seemed like forever.

Christopher grabbed his sister, shaking her out of her thin sleep. She began to wail immediately. Chris clamed down on her arm as hard as he could and her little mouth turned into a perfect "o" of pain.

"Else!" he screamed, crying out again as the creature in the muck - once human just like them - pulled him closer.

"RUN!" he cried.

OK, so that's what I came up with for the first attempt. I left out one of the words (bushel; it was coming in those last two paragraphs), and I wasn't able to get to the ending. Close, but no cigar. My hand was singing frickin Ave Maria by the time I was done, too... I think I need to do this more than once a night... but I gotta work up to it. I had a lot of fun with this, though. It was weird - no planning, no thought, just launch into a story while the clock is ticking... but it was fun. More will follow in future entries, I'm sure.

What do y'all think? I know what I think: MORE PRACTICE!!

If any of you would like to leave me a challenge, please feel free. I only need a horror-related topic, five random words, and a leadoff sentence to start. I'll take care of the rest. Thanks to Cruella for this great beginning to a new path!

A Call to Writers

Exactly one month from now I'll be getting on the plane to go to Las Vegas for KillerCon. WHOO!!

If there's anyone out there reading this who'd like to attend the con and meet up there, please let me know in comments or by shooting me an email (or Tweet, or whatever social media poison you prefer). I'm traveling by myself and I would love to hang out with some blogiverse friends... Regardless, I hope I can make some new friends at the con. I don't want to spend the whole weekend by myself.

I'm also wondering if you guys can help me with something. KillerCon is having an on-site writing contest. The convention committee gives the assembled contestants five words, a horror-related topic, a leadoff sentence, and fifteen minutes. The contestants have a sheet of paper and a pen. After the fifteen minutes is up, they compare entries and choose a winner.

I want to enter this contest, but I'm a little nervous about writing it longhand for a couple of reasons. First is the physical side - because of a car accident two years ago, it's very difficult for me to hold a pen for any length of time. Five minutes is hard. Fifteen minutes is torture. But the more I practice longhand, the easier it gets to do.

The other side is how much slower my hand is at writing my thoughts as opposed to typing my thoughts. My typing speed is on average around 90 wpm, so it's a LOT faster to type than it is write longhand. Which means I don't write as well longhand, because it feels clunky and it's difficult to get up to the speed I want to write at.

So here's where YOU come in. I need to practice this longhand coming-up-with-stories-on-the-spot thing. If you will, leave five words, a topic, and a leadoff sentence in the comments of this entry. I'll time myself and try to do one each evening. Since it'll be hard to get more than a page or two out over fifteen minutes' time, I can post the best pieces on my blog. It won't be entirely spontaneous like the contest will be, but at least I'll be getting some practice at quick invention, along with strengthening the muscles in my hand for quick writing.

What do y'all think? Can you help a fellow writer out?

I hope each and every one of you has a fantastic last week of July. :D