The Bradbury Challenge: Writing One Short Story Every Week

Gerald is back! He had a lot of new ideas as her traveled, and is considering publishing his short stories as a collection. Crissy talks about her new job and getting 40 thousand words into a new series. They discuss finishing projects and how the Bradbury Challenge is effecting their lives. Author mentioned: Melissa Lummis The post Gerald is Back – Bradbury Challenge Ep 23 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Clean Crissy talks about how it felt to write full time. Now that she’ll have to go back to work soon some decisions need to be made. She also finished two short stories and sent them to her mailing list. Meanwhile, Maya began her travels, worked on formatting, and releasing her first short story... The post Freelancing and Releases – The Bradbury Challenge Ep 22 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Mild This week Crissy and Maya discussed revision and Literary Fiction within the Genre’s. Then Crissy reads from her latest project. The post Revision and Literary in Every Genre- Bradbury Challenge Ep 21 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Mild This week Crissy and I discuss publishing our short stories and books. How do we price our works and how is that different for genre and literary fiction. We touch on some pretty controversial topics but try to figure out how we feel about cheap versus expensive books. This Weeks Writing Prompt: There’s... The post Publishing Our Books and Short Stories – Bradbury Challenge Ep 20 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Mild Today Crissy and Maya discuss their projects and thoughts on traditional vs. self-publishing from very different perspectives. We also talk about the future of short stories and technology. The post Traditional and Self-Publishing – Bradbury Challenge Ep 19 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: PG-13 due to innuendo Maya empties her nest, all three of us struggled with time. Gerald only wrote ONE story! I know, the horror lol. We discuss practical solutions to being more productive. Disclaimer: So these episodes are coming out very late and in quick succession. Due to stress and organizational difficulties I had to make... The post Becoming More Productive – Bradbury Challenge Ep 18 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Explicit So these episodes are coming out very late and in quick succession. Due to stress and organizational difficulties I had to make a choice. Either be even more late, or use subpar audio. The next 5 episodes are not up to our audio standard so please bare with us until we are back... The post About Bad Sex Scenes – Bradbury Challenge Ep 17 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Mildly Explicit This week Gerald finished his archetype series and Maya used the writing prompt from the last episode. Crissy also did well and prepared a story for publication. For much of this slightly off topic episode, we discuss Hue Howey and Stephen King, then Gerald get’s us back on topic and we talk about... The post Why we write – Bradbury Challenge Ep 16 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Explicit for language I am really behind in the editing of the Bradbury challenge so please be patient as I roll out several episodes this week. We are trying to remedy the situation and you can help! We started a Patreon campaign to raise funds to hire an audio editor so the shows will... The post Backing Up – Bradbury Challenge Ep 15 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Guest: Karan Bajaj Rated: Clean This week we have a treat for you! Literary Roadhouse  Discussions in a new intermittent extra podcast where we discuss literature and writing with authors and other literary figures. Our first guest is Karan Bajaj. Karan Bajaj is a #1 bestselling Indian novelist with more than 200,000 copies of his... The post Literary Roadhouse Discussions with Karan Bajaj appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated: Explicit for Adult Language Last week Crissy was sick and while we recorded the episode is late so you are getting two stories this week. Gerald finished the penultimate story in his archetypes collection and he is very happy with the depth of his story. Maya questions whether her story is actually a story. Please comment and let her know whether you would consider it flash fiction or slice of life prose. Despite her illness, Crissy got some good writing done after feeling inspired by Norwest Con. We discussed short versus long fiction and how the Bradbury challenge is allowing us to play with our writing. Both Crissy and Maya have had the experience of having a short piece end up being part of a novel, while Gerald finds the two art forms quite different. This Weeks Writing Prompt: A thank you note from someone you don't know.

This week Maya struggled with what to do when the voice isn't right. When the voice isn't right, she finds it almost impossible to move forward. Gerald will set a story aside and work on something else when confronted the problem. But Crissy likes to move forward and fix the voice in revision. Maya likes the idea of switching to additional projects but a crucial problem for her is a block against working on another project when she still has a fear of not finishing projects. Both Gerald and Crissy offered solid advice on learning to work on multiple projects at the same time. They also discuss writing accurately when dealing with race, timelines, or legal procedure. Maya writes characters with diverse backgrounds and Gerald is contemplating a police procedural. Surprisingly, all three hosts find visualizing timelines through drawings or charts helpful for keeping the details straight. Maya and Gerald also plan to use their personal networks to have their work checked for inconsistencies. This Weeks Writing Prompt: Picture a hierophant with swords around its head come to collect a woman. Why?

Crissy was inspired by a story this week that just flowed out of her and had a great writing week. Not only did she finish her story but she sent it out to her list. Gerald also rocked, finishing a total of five good sized short stories in his archetype series. Maya's story had problems so she re-outlined it and plans to re-write it for next week. She also received her stories back from her editor, and both Crissy and Maya about the experience. Gerald hasn't used an editor yet, but has gone to several critique groups. We also discussed language and vocabulary. This Weeks Writing Prompt: There is a wall full of medals. What is the story?

This weeks episode is not up to our usual audio standards due to some technical difficulties. Crissy finished her novel! After discovering that she had a problem with one of her finial chapters, she was able to overcome her writer's block. Maya took a huge step and sent four short stories to an editor. We had a great discussion on the opportunities and problems with self publishing, as well as the increased respect artists are seeing from society. Links Mentioned in this episode: Lynda.com This Weeks Writing Prompt: They say if you drop off a building, the whole of your life flashes before you. So if you do that, what is the one thing that flashes before you.

Finding our writing styles has proved to be a challenging and interesting process. So far Gerald has written over a quarter of a million words and is just now discovering his style after spending time writing in many different genre's. Maya is finding that doing intentional reading is helping her discover her personal style goals but she's struggling to maintain that style consistently. Crissy also discusses her attempts to write to market and why she writes in a niche genre. Maya analyses the pros and cons of traditional versus self-publishing for literary fiction. This was a good discussion that went over in time as we discussed the in's and out's of our larger projects and the skills we feel we're still perfecting. We ended with readings that seem to exemplify each of our individual styles. This Weeks Writing Prompt: There is a clock with the hands set at 2 minutes to 12...

This week Crissy got real and overcame a major obstacle. Maya confronted her high expectations and Gerald’s story takes a dark turn. What is it about writing that so few people finish their writing projects. In this episode, we have a great discussion on what it takes to finish a story. This Weeks Writing Prompt:... The post Getting Real, Finishing, and Expectations – The Bradbury Challenge Ep 9 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Pardon the sound issues, we are working on it. This week Maya and Gerald discuss structural problems with their stories. Crissy was sick after catching conference crud, but still managed to start a story. She is a huge gamer and it was interesting to hear her discuss stories in gaming. Then we each read part of our... The post Structural Problems and Stories in Gaming The Bradbury Challenge Ep 8 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Crissy is at a convention and records from her hotel this week. It sounds like a ton of fun but we’re all jealous of her hotel breakfast. Maya had writer’s block and drilling down a story to it’s most basic elements allowed her to overcome her lack of story. Gerald talks about another exercise he... The post Overcoming Writer’s Block The Bradbury Challenge Ep 7 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated Explicit for Language Wew, finally, here is this weeks episode! Maya, Gerald and Crissy discussed researching our stories and different types of research. While research is important, it can easily be a procrastination minefield. We have enormous resources available through the internet, but is remote research enough to portray the experience of a location? What other types of research... The post Researching Our Stories The Bradbury Challenge Ep 6 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.

Rated PG-13 for comparing public brainstorming to having a sex tape This week both Gerald and Maya experienced breakthroughs in their writing. Maya is happy with her words for the first time this year and Gerald had a flood of enjoyment. Going on a walk with a recorder helped Maya better understand her story from... The post Getting Out of Your Usual Environment Bradbury Challenge Ep 5 appeared first on Literary Roadhouse.