Author Archives: Elaine Burnes
I’m Still Here
Yes, it’s been more than a year since I posted. I’ve no idea why and realize readers might think I succumbed to Covid or something else dreadful. I was on a pretty good roll, posting my fevered writing prompts. They are a lot of fun and continue, but I haven’t felt compelled to share any […]
Writing Prompt: Dependence
The prompt was random, with 30 minutes to write this time, so here’s my take on it. Not fiction this week. Dependence I knew when I decided to move to a rural town with fewer than a thousand residents that I’d be entering a new world of dependencies. Most people think of rural folk as […]
Writing Prompt: Thunder
With only 20 minutes to write, I’ve learned from my writing group not to obsess over naming a character. I take character names seriously and they have to feel right before I can continue. That’s a problem with 20 minutes ticking down. So I’ll go with “she.” That said, I lucked out last week with […]
Writing Prompt: Yellow Jacket
Because I often write nature essays, my writing partners thought for sure I’d go with the insect for this prompt. But I want to stretch my science fiction muscles. There isn’t much to this—we only have 20 or so minutes to write, then countless minutes getting the Zoom connection up for the meeting portion of […]
Writing Prompt: Quarantine
Sometimes the prompts hit just a little too close to home. We can ignore them in our 30 minutes of writing, but I usually forget that and flail ahead. Hence… Quarantine The first definition of quarantine, the noun, is “a period of 40 days.” Who knew? Why that? Biblical? Second definition pertains to shipping—isolating in […]
Writing Prompt: A Fight
Here’s what came of my most recent writing group session… A Fight There’s a meme going around Facebook where you give yourself a point for everything on a list you haven’t done. One is “punch someone.” I suppose I have. You can’t get through toddlerhood without punching someone. The only fight I remember never made […]
New Story Published
On something of a lark, I entered a flash fiction contest sponsored by Queer Sci Fi. I’d never written flash fiction, which I thought of as under a thousand words. This was particularly challenging as it was limited to 300 words. That’s right, 300 words. The premise was Innovation. 1) A new idea, method, or […]
Writing Prompt: I’m from…
This week’s prompt also said to use the five senses. I strayed from the prompt, as we are allowed, though I agree that using all the senses makes, well, sense. I only had 20 minutes, and, frankly, ran out of steam before that. Here ’tis: I’m From… Kate stared at the young woman sitting […]
Writing Prompt: Rebellion
Twice a month, I get together with some other writers. We pull a prompt from an envelope and write for 30 minutes, then read to each other and chat. Now, with Covid, we do this remotely–one has the envelope and emails the prompt to the rest. We write then Zoom the rest of the meeting. […]
On Completing a Second Draft
Last spring I wrote about finishing my first draft. Yay, me! That was a significant milestone, so I’m told. Pat yourself on the back. You did it! So the second draft might be a bit anticlimactic, but it feels important to me. As I foreshadowed in that piece, I did finish it by fall. But […]
Elaine Burnes 