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A Little Inspiration, and a Book Giveaway

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“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
~Ursula K. LeGuin

And to that journey we must now return. The Once Upon a Time Challenge is entering the home stretch. A little less than one month remains in the challenge and in that time there remains many a prize to win: The Gaiman Prize Pack, The O.U.a T. Grand Prize (both mentioned here), and of course the Tiny Stories Contest.

I have received numerous requests for examples of Tiny Stories and wanted to post a few in order to give you some inspiration. If you recall, I said that I would anonymously post any that came in for the very purpose of inspiring you. I may or may not make this a practice as I fear it could have the opposite effect, which is discourage you from sending me your entry. To that end I will go ahead and post the first 100 word entry that I received and will give you a few more examples from Lisa Snellings-Clark and Bob Podrasky’s Tiny Stories contest from which our contest draws its inspiration. Please point out if any examples use a word more than once as it is annoyingly difficult to catch all of these. And so, without further ado:

Of course, omens occurred. Elderly cousins, reunioning at Pickle Park, observed bears wading into Union Pond in hulking, dark brown rows–not after fish, but something else they couldn’t see. Young Thomas Spikehurst made four videos showing purple lights dancing skyward near moonrise. At Ferry Brook Junkyard (“U Break, I Buy”) sudden fire consumed Potter’s three wrecked Chevy Novas and his second-best tractor. Even East Village Cemetery’s marble angels, standing glumly along their wrought-iron gateposts, were seen weeping sooty tears. Yet people seemed surprised when Old Testament rains came, bursting the dam, washing Kippsville away with a single sixteen-foot wave.

Quite good, no? Here’s one that I came up with yesterday as I sat ruminating about Star Wars and my early science fiction influences (inspired by the post Origins of a Stainless Steel Rat):

Origins

Resembling nothing more than your average teenager’s bookshelf, paperback spines of various condition facing outward, it invited further scrutiny.

Would you believe a gateway to other worlds existed there? Kneeling before shelves in reverent worship, the young boy met many universal travelers: Han Solo, Slippery Jim DiGriz, Jaybee Corbell, Richard Rollison, “Snake” Plissken…

Dismantled ages ago, that doorway is being remade. Second-hand bookstores provide bricks; memories–mortar. Now grown, those adventure longings return. Authors long dead, or evolved, no longer pen travels for these old friends. He must journey into his past.

One question remains: Once rebuilt, will they come?

Not great, but done to show you that one need not agonize over this. Rather, take and idea and run with it.

Here are links to several that Lisa either did herself or contest entries from when she and Bob put out a call for entries for their contest:

Comfortably Numb
Fresh Reign
Lost Dreamer
Forbidden
Untitled
My Own Evening News
Prelude
Mentor

There are several more in the June 2005 archives of Lisa Snellings-Clark’s site, if you scroll down, you’ll find them.

Here is an example of a practice one that Fence did which should also give you inspiration.

I hope these help, and I hope to get many more 100 unique word tiny stories in my email soon! Remember, even if you send me one prior to June 21st, if you get another idea and prefer to substitute stories, that is okay. As long as by June 21st you have picked one story to be your representative entry.

A question came up and I wanted to make sure this was clear. The Tiny Stories HAVE to be 100 Words long, with no word used more than once. You can title your story, which is fun, and it can be words you already used but it is even more fun if the title is from unique words as well. If we don’t stick to exactly 100 words, someone could write a theoretically ‘better’ story because they were able to shorten or lengthen their story. Part of the ‘challenge’ is the 100 word count as well as the using unique words aspect of it. To make word counting easy, use the ‘word count’ function in ‘tools’ in Word to see your word count.

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And speaking of Tiny Stories, one of our celebrity judges for the Tiny Stories contest, Colleen Gleason, has her own new not-so-tiny story, Rises the Night, coming out next week. This second novel in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles will be released June 5th. I have a bit more to read before reviewing, but I can safely say it is excellent.

And you, dear reader, have a chance to win an autographed copy of your very own before it is released. Just include phrase “I’d like something to sink my teeth into” at the end of any comment you leave here between now and 11:59 p.m. CST tomorrow (Wed) night if you are interested in winning a copy. I’ll draw a winner and Colleen will wisk your book off to you immediately!

Good luck!

Look for a Rises the Night review and an interview with the author coming soon to a Stainless Steel Droppings blog near you!

30 thoughts on “A Little Inspiration, and a Book Giveaway”

  1. Um. “I’d like something to sink my teeth into”.
    LOL

  2. I feel like I’m so behind in the challenge, but Don is away this weekend which should give me a chance to catch up. I’ve just started “The Once and Future King” which should be a fun read…

  3. Whelp, it helps seeing the tiny stories!

    oh..and both stories use the word “a” twice! It really isn’t that easy! lol

  4. upon reading the links I notice that many use a word and then use the same word “plural”.. is this allowed??

  5. I’d like something to sink my teeth into…so to complete the Once Upon a Time Challenge, I’m starting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream this week!

  6. Look at me, an example 😉 Anyway, I’d certainly like something to sink my teeth into 🙂

    deslily, I think the way back original rules allowed for plurals and contractions, so that do no and don’t as well as door and doors are acceptable.

  9. I don’t really care about plurals. Not sure how it applied to Lisa’s challenge, but it is okay here. I wouldn’t recommend overdoing it, but it certainly is allowed.

    Thanks for pointing out my two ‘a’s I went and fixed one. Once you stare at the same paragraph over and over again you quickly lose the ability to discern repeating words. I actually think it is much harder to notice that you’ve repeated a word than it is to write the story in the first place! 😉

    In fact, I’m not even seeing a second ‘a’ in the first story that I received and posted. Any help?

  10. I can’t read my own handwriting LOL… the first one has two “at”s. sorry’bout that…

    thanks about the plurals I have one tiny story ready but now I may try a new one .. I forgot about contractions and now I know plurals..everything helps! LOL..can you tell I am mentally challenged? lol

  11. LOL, I just found another word I used twice in mine: ‘long’. It has since been fixed, but it cracks me up how the mind can just go over things again and again and miss those repeats.

  12. Hey Carl! Great stories! I’m back and going to work on my story. Love the typewriter pics, and um….of course, I’d like something to sink my teeth into 🙂

  13. one thing I tried was to find each “first” small word (like A or The) and do a search for it in the finished story. Then repeat with the next small word.. I did that alot and you can’t believe how many rewrites just to get it where it is now.. I still used the word “her” and “herself”… is that ok???

  14. yep, ‘her’ and ‘herself’ are fine.

    I’ve used your same method and I still missed my two ‘a’s and two ‘longs’ until you pointed one out and I finally saw the other this morning.

    I will certainly go over everyone’s story when they are submitted and check for word-count (easy with Word, which will do it for you) and repeated words and if anything is off I will give you time to correct them. I’ll probably have a couple of people check for repeated words since it is so hard to catch them.

  16. I still maintain that writing the story is easy…its just going back and catching those words that is hard!

    And welcome back Chris!!! Can’t wait to hear about and see pics of your trip!

  17. I’m still brainstorming on the topic for the 100 word story. It’s easy for me to ramble on but harder to be succinct and still maintain a narrative. Good luck to all who will be in the draw for the book!

  18. I’d like something to sink my teeth into…. because we all want to know what happens next in the series. 🙂

  20. Will put my tiny thinking cap back on…thanks for the inspiration 🙂

    Look forward to your interview with Colleen!

    Oh and…err…“I’d like something to sink my teeth into”!!!

  21. Are “he” and “he’s” considered different words? 😉

    Aaaaargh. I. Am. So. Uninspired. Three times now I have sat down to write one of these little stories, and I’m just not getting anywhere! Gah.

    *sigh* At this rate my terrible secret will be revealed! (Insert simultaneous winking – and sad – faced smiley here.)

    (I’d like something to sink my teeth into, by the way. ;))

  22. Yes they are, because ‘he’s’ is the contraction, ‘he is’ and contractions are a-okay!

    That’s a pretty darn inappropriate saying I put up for the contest entry, isn’t it? Didn’t think about that until just now.

  23. The examples are inspiring. I’ve been playing with it and haven’t really gotten anywhere. And…”I’d like something I can sink my teeth into.”

  24. Whoops! I forgot to tell you I love your pictures of the Poppits on the typewriter.

  26. Oh can’t wait to read the upcoming interview with Colleen! I still haven’t read her first book – shame on me! I do have it though and it’s high on my TBR stack. Oh and “I’d like something I can sink my teeth into” Thanks Carl!!

  27. I’d like something to sink my teeth into….especially a book by Colleen Gleason! 😀

  28. Thanks for the clarification on the 100 word count. I thought it was a maximum. I posted my practice entry (a mere 88 words) on my site, so now I’ve got to revise revise revise my real one!

    Oh.. and I think I can say “I’d like something to sink my teeth into” with a straight face 😉

    Nope.

  30. Yes, I was telling Mary the other day before our mini vacation that I wanted to buy an old typewriter. I thought, with our love of reading and love of old things that it would fit in really well with our decorating aesthetic. She proceeded to tell me that a former employee had left one at work for anyone who wanted it. So I not only got a nice, working old typewriter, but I got it for FREE!!!

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