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My first multi-parter of the month! I just couldn't finish this whole thing today, but I have a good idea of where things are going, and it was too much fun to think of the ways an author might need to make herself scarce online for a day or two. Enjoy part one of draft zero of The Storytellers' Conference! The envelope was fancier than anything I'd seen before, and sealed with wax. I wasn't sure how it had found me, since it had no postmark or return address - it hadn't been processed by our postal service, that much seemed clear. It also hadn't appeared at my PO Box, or in my assistant's hands, which is where all the important mail came from. No, this had appeared on the door of my office, inside my house. That was more than a little frightening, and I was tempted to call the police and have someone check it for explosives or anthrax or something equally insidious. It was ridiculous to think that way, though - I wasn't anyone famous. I had sold a coupl...

Whew, this one got long, and I need to figure out a better ending. Again, using a prompt from The Writing Network: your character discovers time travel. Enjoy draft zero of Come With Me If You Want to Live! The snow crunched under our feet as we walked the normal path between school and home. Our breath formed clouds in the air ahead of us, growing and blowing until they intermingled in the air over our heads. The idea of our breaths intermingling made me feel a little funny, and I hugged my arms around my chest to keep myself warm and to keep from reaching out to hold her hand. I'd only been walking to school with her and home for about a week now, and I didn't want to move too quickly. She was the first girl I'd ever really, REALLY liked, and I didn't want to screw things up. (I was also absolutely terrified and didn't really know what I supposed to do, but that was besides the point.) "Elisa?" she asked, twisting her gloved hands together as we walked. ...

While I started with the idea from The Writing Network's prompt for today ("Write a story about a year without a summer,") I ended up taking it in a different direction - is there ever really a summer if summer never ends? Behold, draft zero of No Summer.  Everything was dry as dust, and the heat was becoming unbearable. That's what people were saying on television, at least, but we had been through "unbearable" heat for the better part of a year now, and most of us had managed to bear it. We didn't like it, exactly, and there had been a few of us who hadn't managed to bear it, but most of us managed to make it from one day to the next. Scientists still weren't sure what happened, exactly. The seasons just...stopped. The spring had been hotter than most of the ones we'd had before, but nothing out of the ordinary. The summer had been dry, the sun blasting down and making the ground rock-hard and keeping anything from growing. We knew that the...

 I decided to use one of the prompts from The Writing Network today - they're the people who are hosting the 31 Stories challenge, and they are putting up two prompts per day, to be used (or not) as one sees fit. Today, I used the prompt: Neighbors meet with a visiting geologist that provides facts proving their island is sinking. So please enjoy draft zero of Sinking Island. HOA meetings were the bane of my existence, as they were for any right-thinking person, but they were part of the cost of living on one of the most remote, resourceful, and technologically-enhanced islands in the world. You paid your 7000 credits per annum, you followed the rules put in place that are partially for protection but mostly to make sure everything and everybody looks the same, and you attend the mandatory meetings every lunar cycle. Considering we were one of the last remaining outposts in this hemisphere, it wasn't that much of a price to pay, but good grief, it was boring. I had the window ...

It's 2022! I can tell some of my neighbors are excited still, as they are still letting off (entirely illegal) fireworks in the area.  As for me, I'm trying to start the year gently, without making any sudden moves or anything that might make the year think I'm threatening it for dominance. I'm taking a little bit of time to write, which means you all get to see it - isn't that exciting? I'm doing the 31 stories in 31 days challenge again, giving myself an incentive to write every day and also a chance to build up a bit of momentum. This time, they aren't all necessarily going to be fiction - I may slip some memoir-type stuff in here, as I think of it. Today, for example, is about a small stuffed dog and my first experience with non-binary characters, which I didn't even think of in those terms until just today.  As a reminder, this is always draft zero, no editing, take it as it comes. Just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself int...