{"id":15287,"date":"2022-05-30T20:12:17","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T02:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=15287"},"modified":"2022-05-30T20:12:17","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T02:12:17","slug":"spring-shorts-2022-4-the-freedom-of-second-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/spring-shorts-2022-4-the-freedom-of-second-chances\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Shorts 2022 #4: The Freedom of Second Chances"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I&#8217;m really happy with how this short story turned out. It pushes the edge in a lot of interesting ways, with the main character having to choose between duty and honor and doing what is right, and a forced abortion situation that puts the lie to the &#8220;women&#8217;s right to choose&#8221; insanity. It will probably get me blacklisted at a few more magazines, but at this point I really don&#8217;t care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once again, I used the Mythulu cards to come up with this story. Here are the ones I used:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>CLONE: Many available forms, including: duplicate, twin, rebirth, alternative life path manifested, time traveler overlap, actor, understudy, etc. Can even mean a second chance or a relapse.<\/li><li>ABANDONED: Indicates a severe problem in the environment that prior ihabitants were unable to solve. Draw +1 Habitat.<ul><li>COASTAL: Peaceful threshold where the ocean meets land. Known for caves, karsts, and dunes. Represents unsolvable relationship problems.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>ERODED: Extensive, exponential deterioration of a foundation due to long-neglected defense.<\/li><li>MARRIAGE OF HONOR: A permanent relationship initiated to help someone else avoid shame or discredit.<\/li><li>TATTOO: Marked to identify, warn, or remember.<\/li><li>GUILTY: Responsible for the worst thing that has happened recently to everyone around them.<\/li><li>BODYGUARD: Primary purpose is to protect something else, at any cost.<\/li><li>VELVET: Labor-intensive weave of fabric that mimics the soft fur on a young buck&#8217;s antlers. Worn to inspire reverence or respect.<\/li><li>BLOOD: Represents the energy invested to keep something alive. The only element which affects the soul beyond mortality. Can taint or purify.<\/li><li>SLIPPERY: Wants freedom and is hard to hold onto. Often enjoys the chase.<\/li><li>BUREAUCRAT: Keeps others in bondage with words. Diverts enemies toward illusions to exhaust them into giving up.<\/li><li>CATALYST: Initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected. Gifted at getting things moving.<\/li><li>NECRO: Things that were once living, but no longer are. Draw again to decide what died. Draw +1 Habitat or Element.<ul><li>PET: Healthy codependence with a clear heirarchy, usually between members of different species.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>TORN: Forcibly separated parts, which often continue to exist separately. Indicates a lost privilege or reduction in status. Symbol of anger.<\/li><li>SIGIL: Symbols that have power to force or bind. Used in communities to rally groups together.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m going to keep going through until I&#8217;ve used all of the Mythulu cards in a story at least once. So far, they&#8217;ve proven to be an interesting way to not only generate story ideas, but to send my stories off in different and interesting directions. It usually takes me a little while (or sometimes a couple of different draws) to figure out how to fit everything into a coherent story, but I&#8217;m getting the hang of it, and the process is actually pretty fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the spring shorts challenge, it&#8217;s Memorial Day today, which means that the challenge is basically over. I only ended up writing four stories, which is a lot less than what I&#8217;d hoped to write, but I think these will turn out really well after I rework them a bit, so I&#8217;m counting it as a partial success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For June, I plan to write two more short stories in order to fill up the buffer. My writing group meets once a month, so with two more stories to critique in June, that will give me a buffer of six months by the time July rolls around. I also plan to fix up all four of these spring shorts stories and put them on submission for the next few months, before I publish them as free singles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will try to do a new short story each month, in order to keep the buffer at six months, but I may do another short story nanowrimo this year if it turns out that I need more. As far as other WIPs are concerned, though, after I write these next two stories in June, I&#8217;m going to go back to novels. My plan right now is to write the first three chapters of <em>The Sword Bearer<\/em> and <em>Captive of the Falconstar<\/em> by the fourth of July, then decide whether to go on with one of those or to keep working on <em>Children of the Starry Sea.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m really happy with how this short story turned out. It pushes the edge in a lot of interesting ways, with the main character having to choose between duty and honor and doing what is right, and a forced abortion situation that puts the lie to the &#8220;women&#8217;s right to choose&#8221; insanity. It will probably&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/spring-shorts-2022-4-the-freedom-of-second-chances\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Spring Shorts 2022 #4: The Freedom of Second Chances<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1567,1542,981,170,1118,932],"tags":[46,1338,1544],"class_list":["post-15287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-captive-of-the-falconstar","category-falconstar-trilogy","category-queen-of-the-falconstar","category-short-stories","category-the-sword-bearer","category-twelfth-sword-trilogy","tag-goals-and-plans","tag-mythulu","tag-spring-shorts-2022","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-3Yz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15288,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287\/revisions\/15288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}