Teachers Write Week 1 Catch-up

The first week of Teachers Write is over and I missed all but the first day.  Getting ready for trek this week and then going was a great experience! I really should sit down and write about that instead, but I spent the evening reading through comments and blog posts from the guest authors and really felt like I needed to put pen to paper.  (And I was glad I found an empty journal to scribble in--I learned I write better fiction old school...weird huh?)

The hardest part for me was the fact that I really needed a story.  I don't have a WIP or an MS already going, but I thought that if I am going to do these prompts well that I need to start something--even it if it is just a simple short story or a random narrative that doesn't go much farther than the summer.  It can even change so that I have more than one going on at a time, but I needed something.

This week seemed to have a theme of sorts--character development through observation and imagery along with specific voice for your characters.  I decided that it would probably burn me out to try to catch up on all of the prompts from the week, but I decided that I would try to flesh out some characters and give them a distinct voice. It really evolved while I wrote it--and I'm kind of excited to see where it takes me. Here we go....

Mom is so tired that she can't move anymore.  Her baby is crying so loud and no matter how much she bounces that baby it will not be quiet.

Her teenage daughter (probably about 14) looks at her mom (as she turns up her I-pod even more) with a look of disgust.  "Why did she have t have another kid?! Did she not get enough of this with the first two?"  Her little brother is hiding somewhere.  The ten year old annoyance was actually not being annoying at the moment.  Maybe he was just as annoyed about the newborn baby as she was.

Yep, he was annoyed alright. He had been the one mom had spent her time with. Allison was turning too much into a teenager for mom to want to be around her.  What was with his sister? She's all mood and angry all the time.  It worked out for him though--he got to spend all that time with mom. "Got" being the key word there--past tense.  That was all gone now. This baby had infiltrated so far into his mom's life that she didn't even have time to sit and talk anymore.

Excited for week 2 to see where I can take these three--and see if I can't flesh out a possible dad in the mix.