Reaper's Son

I'm not one for horror. Horror... well, it horrifies me. I generally walk away from it going, "uhhhhhh" and **shudder**.

However, at the online Writer's Retreat that I frequent (and get lots of writing tips from), there are these fun monthly competitions called Monthly Write Offs. What it is, is this: one person gets to be the "Ruler", and say what kind of story needs to happen, i.e., fantasy, fiction, non-fiction, etc. The Ruler also gets to say what kind of word count you get, whether 750 words to 2500, or even 500 MAX! Then there are certain key elements that you must include. For example, in one Monthly Write Off, we had to insert four different random lines (two of them were "Give it to me",and "It must be a joke") and several different words, such as "confabulation", into the story, and make it FLOW. It's always fun, and at the end of the month you've got this story you'd never thought you'd write, but which might just be marketable.

Well, for the MWO in May, we did a Halloween theme, and I surprised myself by actually dreaming up something creepy! Really, really creepy. I scared myself, you know? In fact, it was so eerie I called it the Reaper's Son, and submitted it with a kind of shocked disbelief that I had written it. Now, I'm in the revision process of the Reaper's Son, and I've got two potential markets I'm going to sub it to. Isn't that something?

So, no matter what genre you think you're "blocked" into, remind yourself to always try something new. I'm rather fond of the Reaper's Son... I hope I'm able to place it. Be that as it may, it opened a new door for me and let me explore a new niche that I actually enjoyed venturing into.

Good night!