Ominous October and A Short, In-Depth Discussion About Abe

Howdy-doo, everybody! I hope this post finds you doing well!

From now until my release date on October 16, I want to take one of my stories that will be coming out in Unfettered and discuss it a little bit. Today, my chosen victim is probably one of my very favorite stories that I wrote during August, a story called Abe. Now, if you get my newsletter, you’ll recognize that title as one of the stories I sent to you to read. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did, and perhaps it will be fun for us to dive into that story a little bit.

First, however, I wanted to bring you up to speed on something I’ll be doing for the entire month of October: Ominous October. I know I’ve talked about this even in previous posts, but I wanted to give some more details.

So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. A little background to begin: Ominous October is something I dreamed up as a way to help me get into a better habit of writing daily in order to prepare for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). NaNoWriMo takes place in November every year. The goal is to write 50k words, roughly the length of a novel, in 30 days. I’ve done this challenge for the past five or six years and, sadly, have never successfully completed it. However, this year, I feel a lot more confident. I have a story idea I’m really psyched about, and I have a great friend that has decided to join me this year, not only to write her story but to hold me more accountable. So, I’m itching to go on that. If you think NaNoWriMo sounds like something you might be interested in participating in, you can find more information here or sign up to participate here.

Now that I’ve gotten us way off track, Ominous October is something I’ve designed to help me write every day. Each day, on each of my social media accounts, I’ll be releasing a prompt word. I’m hoping to release this word as close to midnight as possible so anyone who chooses to join me on this quest will have as much time to write as they can. Each prompt word will be Halloween themed in some way. I enjoy Halloween and thought this would be a good way to work through all those cool words (like ghoulish) that feed nicely into a spooky, scary, anxious theme. Then, sometime during the day, I’ll be releasing a sample of my fill for the day. I’m going to try to release the part with the prompt word in it so anyone following can see how I used it. As always when I do a challenge like this, I’m not limiting anyone in any way. The fills can be whatever you feel inspired to write: poetry or prose, long or short, silly or serious. The only goal here is to write. Daily. Every day. I have released all the prompt words for the month on my social media pages so that anyone who would like to participate can perhaps prepare themselves a bit. If you choose to write early so there’s not so much pressure on release day, that’s up to you. As for me, I’ll be taking up the challenge of writing and posting every day. I hope at least a few of you will join me.

Now, as promised, let’s dive a little deeper into Abe. The prompt for that day was as follows: Smoke hung so thick in the library’s rafters that she could read words in it. (Again, I was using prompts from eadeverell.com)

At first, I thought I could somehow turn this story into something about a lost, dumb camper that somehow wandered into the accidentally unlocked library overnight, got completely confused, and started sending smoke signals in the library. Then, I realized that that would set off the smoke alarm, and I’d have to figure out some reason that the fire department had shown up yet. A scene like that wouldn’t allow for much of a twist and worrying about the fire department would take me too far from the scene, so I scrapped that idea.

Then, I considered the possibility of using magic. Had someone escaped from a book? Maybe this was a magical library, and when you light a book on fire, you can read everything in smoke? I didn’t have great plots to go with those ideas, though, so I decided to scrap them, too. Finally, it hit me. A caterpillar. Not just a regular caterpillar. No. I needed a fancy caterpillar, akin to the Alice in Wonderland caterpillar, Absolem. But I didn’t want to just steal him from Lewis Carroll. I wanted my own. And so, I created Abraham McScootch, or Abe for short. I gave him a somewhat cynical personality, as I believe all overgrown, talking caterpillars should possess, and I gave him shoes; he’s a very respectable caterpillar, after all, if you can overlook his cigarette habit.

At this point, I’d answered most of the important questions. Who? Abraham McScootch. What? A massive, talking caterpillar. When? Well, that’s not so important. Caterpillars and libraries have no expiration date in fiction. Where? A library. Dug. Why? Why was Mr. McScootch in a library in the first place? He hadn’t always been there, of course. Someone would have seen him already, and he’d most certainly have met his end when he was a tiny little thing. So, why did he suddenly show up, much to Librarian Lindy’s surprise? He was running from the Butterfly Brigade. (Can you see that I enjoy alliteration?) And, no. I haven’t forgotten about our last question: How? Mr. McScootch has legs. He can take himself from place to place, thank you very much.

For most of the story, Abe and Lindy are speaking, trying to reach an agreement about Abe’s continued presence in the library, and they reach an amicable conclusion for both parties. We get a bit of Abe’s past, and we see what kind of person Lindy is. Pretty cut and dry. Maybe even a little boring, right? Except there’s a twist at the end. Now, I won’t spoil it for anyone, but I will set the scene. There are children in the library, laughing and giggling, using Mr. McScootch as a slide. What could possibly go wrong?

What do I love most about Abe? I love his characterization. Abe was a very easy character for me to give an identifiable voice to, and writing him came very naturally to me. I love the way he’s not shy about what he wants and how he sees the world, and he’s very vocal when it comes to how he thinks he should be treated. He’s also quite good at showing off his emotions with his feet.

Have I piqued your interest? Do you want to know more about Abe and his story? If you subscribe to my bi-monthly newsletter in the next week, I’ll send you a copy to read for free. You can find a piece of Abe on my social media. Or, you can wait for my book to come out, and read the whole thing.

A quick note before I sign off: If you follow me on social media, specifically Instagram, you may want to go and follow a page there called GrandezaCavern. I was recently approached about doing an author spotlight there, so I will be featured in the near future. So, for a first look at that, be sure to like their page on Instagram.

Thanks for sticking around and reading this very long post to the end! I appreciate it! Have a great week, everyone, and I’ll see you in October!