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Photo by flickr user a_isacson
In 2007, New York City made it illegal for parked ice cream trucks to play their jingles in residential areas. I spoke to one man in Queens who still hears the Mister Softee jingle every day.
We were driving from Maine to Brooklyn, playing a game called “Find the NPR Station.” It was a Saturday, after all, and even the smaller markets have Weekend Edition. Somewhere in Massachusetts or Connecticut, we found This American Life and stayed tuned in for as long as we could. New York Times book critic James Wood came on Weekend All Things Considered to announce a fiction writing contest and my ears perked up. I know who this guy is, I thought, I’m reading his book (more on that in a second)! It turned out that this was Round 2 of NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction contest, to which they invite listeners to submit their own works of flash fiction.
Wood talked about the power of specifics in a first sentence. You know, the hook. He gave some example that he also references in his book about a marquis eating lunch, but I’ve already forgotten. And, oh yeah, I only ended up reading half of the book, so…
So the rule for Round 2 was that all stories should begin with the bland, generic sentence, “The nurse left work at five o’clock.” The trick would be to write a killer second line.
I wrote a little story in the next week or so and sent it off a day early. I’d been checking back at the site every few days to see if I was a contender or not, but alas, today I saw that a winner was chosen, and it was not I.
One of my favorite contemporary writers is a guy from Tennessee named Kevin Wilson. I admire his ability to make the surreal feel so familiar. I saw on his web site that he wrote a tiny story for a web site called “Seventy Two Words,” so I thought I might try and write my own 72-word story. I realized too late that the site may not be publishing new work anymore. I liked my story enough to share it, so here you go:
My Tiny Family
We come across a miniature village, set up on the lot between the antiques store and the used bookstore. Tyler, running around the model village, looks so gigantic and surprised that I have to laugh. My wife touches my back and I tense up again. “I’m big!” Tyler says, bending over to peer into the miniature ice cream shop. He is big. I wonder if the tiny villagers ever feel so bored.
After a quick Twitter search for “nanowrimo,” you’ll see that I’m not the only one talking about November’s write-a-thon, even though we’re almost three months out. You’ll also see that I’m not the only one wondering if it’s too soon to be thinking, planning, or talking about NaNoWriMo.
Well, to that question, I say “No!” Or “Yes!” Actually, the only thing I can say with certainty is “That depends!”
Here are a couple of planning pitfalls I’ve experienced in the two and a half years I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo. (Continued)
