A plea for help

[raven]

I've just got the latest "Balliol Misc" email. There is the usual batch of lost bones and drunken choristers, but there is also something of interest to me. The first ever Isis prize is being awarded this year for the best poetry and prose by Oxford students. I'd love to win it; you get published in the magazine. but more than that, it would be amazing to win something that's open to all Oxford graduates and undergraduates. So while I probably won't win, I want to try (prose, that is - I can't write poetry).

The problem is, the deadline is really soon - October 26th, so it's barely a week from now. I haven't written original fiction in forever and I need an idea post-haste. So please, someone give me one! Anything - a short story you always wanted to see written, something I've said I'd write but I haven't, a published work I can mine for ideas, anything at all. The word limit is 1000 words, but I'd better get going. Please help.

Also, out of interest, are any of the other Oxonians thinking of entering?

Edited to add: It's like NaNoWriMo in miniature! Only not as hard. Except it has to be good, so maybe it is as hard.

Comments

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about it. But the deadline does seem atrociously soon. *ponders*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know! I don't have time. I'll have to write it while doing my laundry or something.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

ack... I can't think in brackets of 1000 words anymore. *laugh* I get a thousand words when I'm trying to do drabbles. That is, though, probably the best way to look at this... and if I ever do manage to do anything that short, it's very character-centric: just a little glimpse in at them, really, at some sort of interesting moment.

Which is all very vague and probably not super-helpful, but I'm wrestling with a ghost story over here that was supposed to be short and is already pushing 6,000 words. Er.... :)

[foulds.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. One of my fics was meant to be a single spin-off chapter... it's presently over 40,000 words. Anything that might end by 50,000 is short in my books.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wish I was you. I can't write anything at all at the moment. *groans*

[foulds.livejournal.com]

I'm entering for prose, and the 1000 word limit is an absolute blessing, as is the closing date; it'll make me get off my arse and write what I've been meaning to for ages.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, lucky! I'm finding it impossible to write a word.

[foulds.livejournal.com]

Really? I love to write, but just lack the time. Now I have an actual motive to write, it's going well. What are you thinking of doing?

[foulds.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you asked for ideas. Well how about this; a story about a killer robot driving instructor, who has to make an agonising decision about whether his best friend will live or die. His best friend's a talking pie.

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

Actually, that sounds like an entry in the poetry division: "My talking pie / Must live or die / And all the cars / Go passing by."

[foulds.livejournal.com]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have a winner

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee. That is wonderful.

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

What about fictionalizing a particular moment from your own life?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I may do this, I think. It's probably the only way to write convincingly sans research in the time available.

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

Oh! I didn't know about that! I would love to do it, I won't win but I need to write something original and soon. Did try nanowrimo last year and failed myserably.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Do it, please! We can share the pain. :)

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Write the tragic love story between two pigeons which we witnessed in Green Park.

Write the comedy about the literate dustbin man who tries to read while he's working but he keeps bumping into things.

Write about how learning to drive makes you think about roads in a totally different way.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Those stories need the time I can't give them. Except the last, perhaps; it goes: "Crash, bang, wallop, sigh".

[amchau.livejournal.com]

There you go, then. One (very) short story. Give it a good title ("Record Of Events Occurring On The Occassion Of My First Driving Lesson"?) and submit it. You never know, the judges might love it.

[vamp-bite.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could take some inspiration from your recent Phillip Pulman meeting?