Last WriYe'er Standing

This challenge is like Survivor for WriYe! Every other week, there is a prompt posted. They can be pictures, words, or just about anything really. You have a week to write a short story (< 3,000 words) and submit it. Then the fun starts! Voting! Anyone can vote. So the more votes the stiffer the competition, I imagine. There's a week for voting. By the end of the week, those who have voted have picked their top 3 and last place story. Feedback is a MUST! Then, points are given for how many top 3 stories you got picked. Story with the most votes wins the week. Story with the least number of votes gets axed.

Well, this week, I couldn't get on to view the prompt until Monday as I was out of town and tablet + hotel Wi-Fi does not equal good Internet. Then life ate me until about, oh, Friday. I'd had a little time here and there to get started. Well, on the due date, I realized that there was NO WAY IN THE WORLD I was going to finish the story I had started. Not to mention, the story I had started was trying to be a novel in my mind and wasn't going to be under 3k. I never really reached 1k on it, but what I had set up was going to be L O N G! So I set it aside and wrote something else. This was kind of like an 11th hour story. It by far wasn't my best work, but I'm hoping I don't get kicked out the first week. I haven't read any of the other stories, as the thread was just posted a few hours ago, so I couldn't really say one way or the other. And no, I'm NOT telling you which one was mine! For me, I'm just glad I got it in. I was thinking I sent it to the wrong email or I got the email address slightly wrong. I kept checking my inbox for a "bounce" message that never came. And when I checked the thread my story was there!

So now I have to remember how in the world I did voting the last time I did this. I know I had a rating system and a way to do it that made it easier on me. I don't know. I'll have to see what I come up with when I sit down to vote. Anyway, I'm off to go take the kiddo to her dad, so maybe this afternoon I'll get some time to either write or vote. Writing would be good, as I still need about 1500 words for the 5k Weekend.

Relationships are...complicated.

How hard is it for you to create character relationships? 

It's so hard for me. I don't usually start out knowing who's going to end up together, if anyone. I'm not much of a romance writer, so romantic relationships are really hard for me. Now other relationships aren't as hard for me, but they do require work on my part.

Do you pre-plan them or do you end up letting them develop as the novel goes on? 

Sometimes I pre-plan them, but usually not. I just let the relationships develop as the story goes on. Sometimes I end up with surprise romances out of what I thought was a friendship. Sometimes I find relationships that are very different than what I had thought. When it comes to romance, the relationships I tend to pre-plan are those of the one-night-stand variety. I guess that's what my brain needs sometimes!

Have your characters betrayed you and paired up with someone you didn't expect? 

They haven't paired up with someone else, yet. But I wouldn't put it past them. Usually, like I said before, I get relationships I don't expect between characters I put together.

Give us the story of how your favorite written characters got together and what makes their relationships strongest.

Probably my favorite relationship so far is a bit of fanfiction Alternate Universe.

Here's a little back story on the AU: Take 5 Backstreet Boys, plop them in a sci-fi/Kindred-esqe type story. 4 of them are vampires, 1 of them is a werewolf. Now, the story line is this: the leaders of the supernatural world are upset because vampires being killed. This could out the whole supernatural society to humans! Enter 3 women, a vampire, a changeling and a human "Watcher" who is making sure everything stays under wraps from the other humans.

Okay, now with the back story set, here's my favorite relationship:

Werewolf and changeling were in an intimate relationship in college. Then one night, the changeling is kidnapped by the other changeling she was betrothed to. Werewolf kind of goes insane looking for her, but doesn't find her. He continues his search for the next number of years.

Now that the changeling has been assigned to this group, she must go back into the city where the werewolf lives. She changes her appearance so to not surprise him too much. Unfortunately, he knows it's her, he just can't prove it to himself. After a series of mishaps, fights and other strange episodes that almost makes it out like they hate each other, an encounter where the werewolf is injured sends the changeling to his side. They both brush off the bond as a fluke. Well, later, when the changeling is seriously injured, the werewolf is at her side and seriously protective. It's then that everyone else makes the connection that they are meant to be together. They eventually figure it out as well.

Oh, and a note about the guy she was betrothed to: he dropped her as "damaged" and was a real jerk about it!

I have no idea what makes this relationship so strong. Probably the idea that it goes over a long period of time and the fact that I know the two are bonded together but they don't know it.

My NEW Writing Space

A while back there was this post on the WriYe Boards about your writing space. At the time, I was sitting at my parent's kitchen table because my desk in the sun room was too far away and isolated from my kids and too cold on top of that! Well, my mom had an idea this past weekend that she thought might work. So I give you:

My New Writing Space

Essentially it is 2 closet shelves turned upside down with a shelf screwed to the top. It's one of those "Pinterest" ideas that wasn't really a Pinterest idea, but works none the less. I hate that it's white. I wanted wood colored, but really don't feel like painting particle board, so I guess I'll live.

I numbered things in the picture so I'll go through them:

1. Laptop. It's used for writing and Facebook.

2. Tablet. It's usually in my room so I can write in bed. Being I'm exclusively using Google Drive for this year, I have "an app for that!"

3. Cup that usually has ice water in it.

4. Bag of dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses. I usually need some type of chocolate/candy to keep me going.

5. Bill that needs to be paid. Will be gone by today!

6. I wish I could say this is planning stuff, but it's not. It's the pile of Divorce paperwork and things about my daughter's care and therapy. It will probably only be moved when it needs to be.

7. That's a basket of ribbons I did for my daughter. They're for Rare Disease Day on February 28, 2014. I'm hoping to give them out over the next few weeks.

8. In that basket is a Netflix DVD that I need to watch and return.

There are actually 3 shelves on each side. The bottom two shelves have bins with various things in them. The top two shelves have two little baskets each: a larger basket and a pencil basket. I'm hoping this will help keep me organized and not so all over the place! (My mom hopes this too!)