The continuing saga of Strokes Neckbeard.

The continuing saga of Strokes Neckbeard.
Savior of the seven seas.

We join our hero, Strokes Neckbeard in his bedroom. His girlfriend Boobs MacGuffin is finishing up her shower...

...Just then Fragile Glassjaw bursts into the room.

"Oh my god, boobs!"

"Hey, how did he know my name?" Asked Boobs MacGuffin.

Strokes pointed at her chest. "I think he was referring to those." Strokes turned to Fragile. "Damnit Fragile, what the hell are you doing in my bedroom?"

Fragile rushed Strokes and sucker punched him in the neck. Strokes began to cough and choke and attempted to sputter an obscenity at Fragile, who stood there laughing and pointing.

When Strokes regained his composure he shouted at Boobs to "Cover yourself for God's sake." Fragile took that opportunity to kick Strokes when he was down.

The location of that kick prompted a protest from Boobs MacGuffin. "Hey, I need that!"

"Shut up and cover yourself will ya," said Strokes.

Boobs took the stolen hotel towel she was wearing around the waist and moved it up to cover her chest. However, since this was a hotel towel, she uncovered something else. Fragile's jaw dropped. He stood there like a gaping idiot. Strokes seized the opportunity and punched Fragile in the gut, then introduced his knee to Fragile's face. Fragile fell to the ground unconscious.

Strokes Neckbeard

My writing partner IM'ed me with a single line describing an action. "*strokes neckbeard*" I turned it into some corny, but fun, flash fiction. Who knows, perhaps there is a story line here.

We find our hero, Strokes Neckbeard bound hand and foot by the nefarious villian Fragile Glassjaw.

"So, you thought you could just blow up my ship and get away with it, eh Neckbeard? What, no snappy retort from the great Strokes Neckbeard, the savior of the seven seas? I confess myself dissapointed," said Fragile.

"I thought it might be better to answer you with my fist."

"And just how do you plan to do that?"

"Well, I found a nail that was not quite pounded down over here, and I've been working on my ropes for the last few hours." Suddenly Strokes sprang forward and landed a blow to Fragile's jaw.

Fragile immediately coughed up some blood and teeth. "You broke my friggin jaw!"

Strokes shook his hand in the air as if to shake off the hurt. "Serves you right Glassjaw. You're busted."

Apparently my writing isn't that bad

I write like
Rudyard Kipling

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Writers Block

Every writer gets writers block. It happens. Even if your heart is dying to get this story out of your head and on to paper. It still happens. So many people ask "How can I cure my writers block?" or some variant there of. Most, if not all of them, hate the answer they invariably get. Write. The only way to get past writers block is to write. The problem I have with that, is that it's too generic. Ok, write. Write what? If I could write I would continue my story. One of the best things I have found to help with this is free writing. Pick an arbitrary amount of time, say, 10 minutes. Set a timer. Then start writing. Don't stop, ever. Keep your pen/fingers moving. Even if you have to write "I don't know what to write" a bunch of times, that's ok. Also if you can't figure out what to write about use a writing prompt, the internet is full of websites with plenty of writing prompts.

When you force yourself to just write and write and write, your subconscious takes over and ideas flow out of you that you might never have thought of just "brainstorming" about the problem.

Now back to your blocked up story. Try using what is going on, or whatever problem is happening as your writing prompt. For instance:

The hero is cornered by a dragon and...

Now continue that sentence, it may seem dumb or stupid but just keep going.

The hero is cornered by a dragon and...the dragon eats him. No that won't work, he's the hero. I don't know what he does. Maybe he finds a rock at his feet and throws it at the dragon and hits it in the eye. Now we have a mad dragon. Ok bad idea. Wait didn't we have a throwing knife in our sock. Ok throw that at the dragon. A hit, right in his other eye. Now run for it doofus...

That's the kind of thing you might expect to get, or you may not. Everyone is different. The point is, just write. It doesn't matter what, but using your problem as a kickoff point may even provide you a solution.

Here are a few sites to get you started.
http://www.writingfix.com/index.htm
http://www.writersdigest.com/WritingPrompts
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/daily-writing-prompts/

Haiku Challenge: Three line story

I was talking with my writing partner via IM and he spit out three lines that I remarked was a complete story.

You cannot change the future!
It is already set in...oh look a penny.
*gets hit by bus*

His response was "for a real challenge, haiku three line story". So we did. Here are my two.

Power flickers on.
Then an explosion happens.
Everybody dies.

Cars speed round the track.
One man makes a daring pass.
Takes the checkered flag.

And his two.

The man does not know
his father is still alive,
and always watching.

The ninja strikes fast.
Throwing shuriken at me.
Shotgun beats ninja.

Growing word count

Work on the novel continues. For those who don't know I started a novel back in November for NaNoWriMo, and I actually won NaNo. The novel was called "Dragon Rider", but I think I'm going to change the name to "Dreaming of Dragons". I'm up over 76 thousand words and just finished one of my favorite chapters. I've been looking forward to writing this chapter for a while. I don't know if it will be critical to the story or not yet, but I had to include it. It's been gnawing at the back of my mind for a while because I came up with it a while ago but had to wait until I got to that part of the story to write it. I hope to be able to post some short stories on here soon.

Greetings

Greetings. My name is Ian and I recently discovered writing. I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in November 2009 and I am proud to say that I won! I had a friend participate with me, he won as well. Having a writing partner is a great thing. Having someone to bounce ideas off of, or complain about what my character just did and without my consent, or to share my little nuggets of brilliance (at least I think so) with made NaNoWriMo survivable. I don't think I could have done it alone. Thanks Boodah. If you have ever wondered if you could write a novel, why not try it. You would be amazed what a tight deadline will do for your wordcount. If you don't know how to begin then check out The Snowflake Guy at AdvancedFictionWriting.com his Snowflake Method is what made me think that I might actually be able to write a novel.