Would it be possible for Teppy to post a list of the topics we've used so far? That would give us all a feel for what topics might go together, which ones drew the most interest, which ones were the hardest to write for, which ones were the most fun/painful, etc. I love the thought of using some of the drabbles we did to those old photos, but I don't know what, if any, kinds of permission might be necessary to use them in the book.

I think my best drabble was the Door one, where I described the door in the funeral home while at my father's viewing. Doors on the whole is good, because of the transition and revelatory nature of doors.

I really enjoyed doing the ones based on the pictures Teppy found, but those won't work without the pictures.

Connie, I also suspect we want to avoid legal issues on use of the pictures in a published format.

But I'm inclined to include a separate little section of just Jilli's on those pictures. There's something very Amphigoreyish about them, and I adore them.

(No, I'm not really here. I'm still catching up, I'm somewhen around September of last year, and I'm determined not to skip, at least in this thread, not to skim, too! But, by mistake, I clicked the "Last" instead of the "Next" link, so I got to the end in-which-I'm-not, and, well, anyway. Um.)

The drabble topics are in the lj list, but also, in this GWW thread and the former one:

Challenge # 1: Two people are sitting at a table, opposite each other.

Challenge # 2: Place

Challenge # 3: Memory

Challenge # 4: Sleep

Challenge # 5: Hands

Challenge # 6: Knots

Challenge # 7: two people -- one is lying down and one is standing

Challenge # 8: Blue

Challenge # 9: fruit

Challenge # 10: keys

Challenge # 11: Silence

Challenge # 12: a person walks into a room that has shards of broken glass on the floor

Challenge # 13: "A man walks into a bar...."

Challenge # 14: Revenge

Challenge # 15: Shoes

Challenge # 16: Doors

Challenge # 17: Parade(s)

Challenge # 18: near-death experience(s)

Challenge # 19: the stomach

Challenge # 20: escape

Challenge # 21: a group of people is gathered together, and all of them are looking down.

Challenge # 22: bells

Challenge # 23: under the bed

Challenge # 24: First Time(s)

Challenge # 25: drums

(continued...)

( continues...)

Challenge # 26: the lies we've told so often that they've become real in our* minds

Challenge # 27: Write a personals ad for a famous work of art (painting, sculpture, etc.) that's looking for its ideal viewer/Art education

Challenge # 28: fateful encounters

Challenge # 29: music

Challenge # 30: one person on a ladder, one person on the ground.

Challenge # 31: "Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise." (Margaret Atwood)

Challenge # 32: breath

Challenge # 33: the passage of time

Challenge # 34: first impressions

Challenge # 35: The End

Challenge # 36: Holiday Hell

Challenge # 37: talismans

Challenge # 38: falling

Challenge # 39: Upside-Down

Challenge # 40: Use at least *3* words from the following list: coffee, spaghetti, cromulent, help, pantaloon, anthropomorphic, transubstantiation, carbohydrate, yummy, sleepy

Challenge # 41: degrees

Challenge # 42: fire

Challenge # 43: Two people -- one sitting, one standing

Challenge # 44: opposites

Challenge # 45: hearts

Challenge # 46: describe something small

Challenge # 47: Yellow

Challenge # 48: container(s)/holding (or some variation on "hold")

Challenge # 49: Look At Me photos

Challenge # 50: portray a person by describing the belongings in his/her wallet, desk drawers, kitchen cabinets, car trunk -- you name it.

Challenge # 51: heaven and hell

Challenge # 52: Look At Me photos

(continued...)

( continues...)

Challenge # 53: One Year

Challenge # 54: discovery

Challenge # 55: cliches

Challenge # 56: home + Look At Me photos

Challenge # 57: deliberately poor writing

Challenge # 58: shadow

Challenge # 59: the ways we communicate without words

Challenge # 60: Look At Me photos

Challenge # 61: two people in a small space, in a specific genre

Challenge # 62: the air we breathe

Challenge # 63: meat

Challenge # 64: trust

Challenge # 65: blood

Challenge # 66: driving

Challenge # 67: fire

Challenge # 68: cooking

Challenge # 69: green

Challenge # 70: currency

Challenge # 71: The Other Side

Challenge # 72: dancing

Challenge # 73: rain

Challenge # 74: Look At Me photos

Challenge # 75: cave

Challenge # 76: strike

Challenge # 77: behind the door(s)

Challenge # 78: two people are sitting at a table, opposite each other

Challenge # 79: never say "never"

Challenge # 80: Out of the Closet

Challenge # 81: masks

Challenge # 82: trick[s] and/or treat[s]

(continued...)

( continues...)

Challenge # 83: little gods

Challenge # 84: lost in translation

Challenge # 85: pose

Challenge # 86: lost and found

Challenge # 87: two people, running.

Challenge # 88: the last thing you touched

Challenge # 89: ice

Challenge # 90: returns

Challenge # 91: standing in a doorway

Challenge # 92: When Homonyms Run Amok!!!

Challenge # 93: thank-yous for *shitty* gifts

Challenge # 94: the view outside your bedroom window

Challenge # 95: Look At Me photos

Challenge # 96: the outside reflects the inside....or does it?

Challenge # 97: camouflage

Challenge # 98: Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Challenge # 99: the perfect vacation

Challenge # 100: commemorating an event

Challenge # 101: disguise(s)

Challenge # 102: summer job(S)

Challenge # 103: In the back of your closet is a box. What's in the box?

Challenge # 104: school lunches

Challenge # 105: you would hardly recognize me

Challenge # 106: The In Crowd

Challenge # 107: describe a person/character by the contents of his/her [_______]

Challenge # 108: The Big Reveal

Challenge # 109: lies my parents told me

Challenge # 110: in the garden

( continued...)

( continues...)

Challenge # 111: comfort food

Challenge # 112: poetry

Oh my. Nilly rocks like a rocking thing. Thank you!

Probolem is, most editors (AmyLiz, paging AmyLiz, white editorial phone, please) want a proposal that's showing as much pre-organisation as possible. So the chapter headings should be there, even if they ultimately reject that for their own scheme.

Yup. You need to send something as solid as you think you can make it, so the topics should be chosen, as well as a representative sample of drabbles.

Also, in response to Erin's question about writing to length from a little ways back, it really depends on the genre. While Deb does write organically (more than most people), she also manages to hit her necessary word length. In romance, which is what Erin is writing, there are fairly strict length requirements depending on publisher and line, so you need to be able to meet that criteria.

In terms of a schedule, I have a problem with deadlines, so I *do* try to break things down in a mathy way. If I have three months to write 400 pages, I break it down to roughly twenty chapter at twenty pages each, just to roughly outline. Each can be shorter or longer depending on the scene, but it gives me something to shoot for. Then I readjust as I go. Knowing if you have enough story to fill a 400-page (or whatever-page) manuscript is something that comes with time and practice, IMO.

How much do I love my Nilly? Just, beyond love.

I'm heading out to NY in a couple of hours (the Daymond book), and while I'll have my laptop and WiFi card with me, I don't trust the Millennium to have access, so I'll likely be spotty. But please give some thought and discussion to the topics you'd like for the proposal.

Amy, I'm looking back and this floors me: Cruel Sister is my eighth published novel and it was the first time I've ever been hit with a ridiculous deadline. It wasn't ridiculous in terms of how fast I write - I neededn another 62.5 words or thereabouts on top of what I had, and not quite three months in which to do it - but ridiculous in terms of the circs surrounding that deadline. They had no business imposing it in the first place, not when they'd had the proposal on their desk for six months. Bastards. Besides, I didn't really want to be working on it. The heart and mind and creative mojo were squarely in the Kinkaids.

I got it done by dangling the carrot in front of myself: no starting the third Kinkaid until I finish the fourth Haunted Ballad. Bad writer! No London Calling! It worked, too.

I suspect everyone's going to have a trick for wrapping themselves around a deadline. Hell, the deadline for Truth, in the Middle is 1 November. No problem...