Subtitled: "How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too", this unique book focuses on the creative writing process.
The 30 pieces of fiction in this collection – 29 short stories and one poem, comprising some 33,000 words – were all written by the author within a single month, to meet the creative challenge of an Internet-based writing competition. Each story is accompanied by a detailed outline of how the author arrived at his creative response to each day's challenge, and how the story was structured.
You can read and enjoy this book simply as a collection of short stories covering various genres.
But if you are an aspiring writer, the author's creative torrent should be inspirational, and you can use this book as a guide to help you generate your own creative ideas.
Excerpt
At the End of His Tether
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He’d left a note, of course. It was quite brief, but at the end he’d asked his neighbour – begged her, really – to look after Sally. Mrs Donovan loved dogs, had two of her own. Sally would fit right in. He didn’t have to worry about that at least.
He’d bought the rope at the hardware store in Hannover Street, twelve feet should be more than enough. The clerk hadn’t asked him any questions. No reason she should, really. He wasn’t a regular there, didn’t do much in the way of home maintenance.
Back home, in his kitchen, he tried to tie a proper hangman’s knot. He’d looked it up on the Internet, actually. Amazing what you could find out on the Internet. Except for a reason to go on living, of course. You could Google that phrase, but all that came back was the predictable religious-oriented hogwash, 200,000 or more hits. Empty, meaningless, like his life.
Except for Sally, that is. She’d kept him going longer than he’d thought possible after Jenny had died. But there were limits on how much comfort a dog’s companionship could give you. And now he’d reached that limit.
Married ten years, and more in love than ever, Robert and Marcie have everything to live for. But a terrible secret is breaking Robert's heart: he knows that Marcie is about to die...
A homonymless man writes shows what it's like to look up the laid he skirts when you’re lying prone(d) to the sidewalk, beer / joint / needle dangling from your hand /lips / arm.
