Author Archive | Robert J. McCarter

Summary Finally hit the end of  “Woody and June vs. the Ex.” At 10,000 words it was a blast to write, but a streak buster for sure. Fun was more important here than the streak. With the four of these I’ve written (one last month while I was training for this) I’m up over 30,000 […]

Summary Onward with “Woody and June vs. the Ex.” Things slowed down a bit today. Our heroes are at the bottom of the Grand Canyon just having escaped a zombie hoard. These stories are very much about place and I have to spend time looking at the landscape and the trails, seeing what is possible. […]

Summary Last night after I posted yesterday’s entry, my wife was in kitchen late, cranking the Eagles and cooking. Not wanting to be at my desk anymore, I grabbed my laptop and sipped red wine while she cooked. We chatted and I banged out the start of a story while she cooked. It was strange. […]

Summary Up in front of the computer just before 6 a.m. again, no idea what to write.  My brain came up with an interesting sentence written from the perspective of an android that has just been powered up and doesn’t know what happened to the world. It’s one of those “paint yourself in the corner” […]

Summary Did a short session early, but cut it off to go run before the heat hit and the work day started. That sure helped; got my body moving and my emotions perked up too. The pace of this challenge is starting to wear. Oddly this can give me trouble starting a story, but once […]

Summary Busy work day so harder to get the hours in today. Early, lunch, and late. Did another “Death by” story in the world of Shuffled Off. This one is “Death by Cookie” and is about 4,000 words. Fun to bring JJ and Banquo out to play with. A quick pass on “Death by Vodka” […]

Summary Had a tough time getting going this morning with writing. While I like “Jump in Time” a lot, it took a lot of energy and I didn’t get enough rest over the weekend. This is a pacing issue. I’m going to shoot for short for a few days to try to recover. After looking […]

Summary Out for an early run today–the heat wave making it too hot to run later, even up here on the mountain–and the pieces of “Jump it Time” floated around my mind, tempting me. So, back to it today and not on the back burner as I thought yesterday. Stories have a way of doing […]

Summary Back to “Jump in Time,” but this thing has taken on a life of it’s own and is over 5,000 words with a ways to go. Lots more research and a much more complicated story that the other “In Time” stories. I’m not even sure if it’s a short story anymore. Ack! This puts […]

Summary Back to staring at the blank page this morning. I’ve done it many, many times now but it’s always intimidating–and I think that’s okay. The trick is to just find something, anything and start, reduce infinity down to something measurable. and go from there. This new story is contemporary with a dollop of fantasy, […]