Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

What I’m (th)Inkingabout

Tuesday prompt: #2 2013

by

Today imagine yourself or a character doing a common activity, i.e., washing dishes.  In the process of this activity, have a mythological creature appear.  How would your character or you react to such an event? Write about it.

Spirit of the cave

For example: Let’s say you choose dish washing.  Imagine as the water was flowing out of the tap, you (or your character) realized the water was looking just like a foot disappearing down the drain as if a water spirit had flowed out of the tap.  What would happen?  Would you turn the water off or reach for the disposal switch?  Would you back away or grab for the foot.  Write out the scene and find out.

My Doubling Plan for the Year.

by

Scheherazade’s rice doubling

So last year I reviewed my efforts to publish my first book on Smashwords (first book anywhere, to qualify that), and I viewed a simple download of a sample of my work and the 151 times my blog had been sampled as a positive step forward to being a writer. I talked about my plans to publish my second book in my series Students of Jump, and I wanted to double the number of times my blog had been viewed.  So how did I do and am I still looking forward positively when I still remain undiscovered by a reading public?

  • I unpublished In Times Passed this past September to revamp and reedit as I felt it was incomplete.  I intend to republish before this month is out, and it is now complete and just in need of some review editing.
  • No-Time Like the Present, the second in the series, is not published yet, but is on its last redraft and close to a full-blown edit and first reader run.   It suffered a delay when I pulled book 1 off the line for a revamp and reedit.  I can say book 2 is two to four months away from publication.
  • I did publish an anthology of short stories called Gardens in the Cracks & Other Stories last July.  I chose to hit my publish date for book 2 with this anthology as I hated missing a self-imposed publishing day.  I follow the philosophy that backing down from a promise is just a habit in the making. So this was my way of keeping my promise but not putting a book out before it was ready.  These shorts stories felt ready.
  • So I wanted to double my 151 blogger visits.  That would mean I had to have at least 302 hits for 2012.  I have had 1,726 hits.  Guess I hit that goal a few times.  Sure, I know that is not much when looked at in popular blog numbers, but here I am with a plan to double it again.  So I am off to break 3,456 by next year.
  • I started a Twitter account (@LDarbyGibbs) and had quite a run with it until school started and I had to put my valuable time elsewhere.  I met some great writers, learned to get my point across in 140 spaces or less and found Hootsuite a hoot better than a hollar.  I still visit Twitter every couple of weeks and wish I could do more.  Second semester has always been the easier part of the school year for me, so perhaps I’ll be on more in the coming year.
  • I slipped off Goodreads once September came, same excuse applies.  But I read five books in the last week and half while on Christmas break.  So I do have something to talk about.  I might get back on as the new semester gets settled.
  • Book 3 of the Students of Jump is drafted, titled (Time on my Hands), and waiting in the wings.
  • I am still publishing on Smashwords, which is really publishing everywhere else I want to be anyway.  I’ve sold a total of 18 books which is 18 more than I started with.  I can say I doubled my numbers since last year.  Okay, try not to snigger too loud.  Remember what happened when Scheherazade told the story of doubling the grains of rice just a few times.  I have a tried and true plan here.
  • New goals besides what is stated above:  keep writing, keep reading, keep loving my family and being worthy of their love, make more writer friends, and grow a little wiser in the effort.

So what is your plan for the year 2013 in the making?

Tuesday Prompt: #1 2013

by

Happy New Year prompt:
Write about what you are hoping for in this new year, what a new year might bring to a character’s story that you are working on or work on a poem about bringing in a new year.  Speculate as far as you can go.

Just like this kaleidoscope picture, imagine turning the view on the new year and seeing what a small shift in perception or action might bring.

Focus on the details of living

by

Well, Christmas is here, so enjoy your time with family and friends.  Soak it all in.  Bits of it will foster your writing, and all of it will grow your relationship with family.  So I hope you haven’t been hanging out on the internet reading this blog and my prompt yesterday (for if you had then you would have noticed I was late in posting my writing prompt, too busy soaking in the family).

Tuesday prompt: #53 2012

by

Write about a Christmas moment.  Keep it tightly focused:  green and red sparks twinkle on a round blue ornament, drizzled in gold glitter.  On the lower half of the roundness, where less of the glitter crusted, reflect the curved images of two children in red pajamas pulling aside bright wrapping paper.  The background soft chimes of Christmas music take back stage to the delighted “thank you’s” as some are shouted out in inattentive abandon while others are whispered in glorious wonder.

Or write about a birthday, if you are commercial Christmassed out.

Tuesday prompt: #52 2012

by

Success going up the ladder

Choose an idea: happiness, success, despair, governance, laziness or….  Give it human qualities (yes, personification) and let it wander through a room or down a road, take a seat at a desk or settle in comfortably against a tree along a byway.  Describe it thoroughly from the button on the top of its cap to the nails in the soles of its shoes.