Last week, I asked my fellow writers not to use the “doesn’t fit the word limit” excuse, and many of you agreed. Then, FF came around and I wrote a story that a lot of readers didn’t get and felt could have been clearer if it were longer. Which it could, but I don’t think it needed to be longer to be clear enough, and I certainly don’t offer that as an excuse for confusing anyone!
I will admit that when I posted Behind the Scenes, I didn’t think it was my best work ever. I thought it was OK, I thought it was clear enough, but I didn’t think it was great. Why, then, did I go ahead and post?
The answer is that I didn’t want to skip a week. I didn’t want to post nothing, or just a place-holder saying there’d be no story that week. I thought the story was good enough, and I knew I wouldn’t have time to write anything better. My excuses for last week are threefold – I was short of time, I had guests staying (which is lovely, and helpful in many ways, but not conducive to the lonely pursuit of writing), and I had the flu.
Are those excuses better than “doesn’t fit the word limit”? I don’t know. I’d say yes, in the sense that I literally didn’t have chance to do any better. And yes, because I posted something that in my opinion stood as a story, had enough clues to make the story clear to those who looked etc. As it turned out, that latter point is debatable, but that wasn’t what worried me at that time – I just thought it was a bit of a frivolous plot.
This week the flu is a bit better, but I’m otherwise equally engaged with guests and stuff to do. I’ll try to do better though, and thanks for bearing with me.
elmowrites 