swiss cheese stories

I am in the process of writing the draft of a novel right now, and it's a complicated and scary process. However, I am also in a fiction writing class this semester that involves submitting what you are working on to the rest of the class for workshop sessions where you receive critiques and all kinds of helpful suggestions for what's working and what you could be doing better.

I am not an outliner when it comes to writing fiction, which is both fun and a downfall, since I have a lot of ideas and characters, but I can't quite get everything to lay out clearly in a nice pattern. After spending time today in workshop being asked really important questions about my work in progress and realizing I didn't have all of the answers that I needed, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about what's going to happen next in my little novel-to-be. One of my classmates had a similar experience today in trying to figure out the logistics of his novel, and when the class was over, he turned to me and said, "Well, we both have a lot of holes in our stories!"

I just laughed and said, "Yay for swiss cheese stories!" It was after that exchange and the conversations in class today that I realized truly how helpful this course has been, and how sad and helpless I will probably feel after this semester when I can't bring my work to my classmates (now friends) and get honest feedback to help make my work better, and in exchange hopefully do the same for them.

But in the meantime, I am appreciating the value of being able to identify for others and receive with gratitude the holes in our stories. They do say that cheese gets better with age, right?

cloudy with a chance of hyperbole

There's a possibility that I might be a tad overdramatic when contemplating and talking about my life. I don't really know how to fix this. I think it just might be how I operate.

Sometimes I think I would give anything to be normal, but then I remember that without quirk, life is just black and white. And I would hate to live without color.


This blog post doesn't really have a unifying purpose. But here it is anyway.

I need more sleep.

55-Word Story

This week in my fiction writing class we received the challenge to write a short story in no more than 55 words. In order to be considered a "story," we determined that it should have a setting, character(s), a conflict, and a resolution.

Oh, and just for fun, we had to incorporate 2 out of the following 3 nouns: volcano, train station, or backflip. So, here's mine. Feel inspired? You should write one, too! (The title doesn't count against word count.)

A Sticky Situation

by Dana Black

"Stupid thing won't budge!" I cried, a volcano of panic erupting inside at the realization.
"Let me try," Amy turned to me after parking in front of the train station. She grabbed my hand, wrenching the sparkling offender from my finger. I protested, but the ring for my brother's girlfriend was safe from my envy.