Holy cow, that story was a clunker! It was story number thirteen on week number thirteen. Thirteen is usually a lucky number for me. Not this time.

What went wrong?

I started writing for four to five year olds. The story was pretty basic. Somewhere along the way I started writing for seven year olds. The vocabulary changed and the sentence structure changed. No cohesion. I actually think the change is for the better. In rewrites, I would change the beginning more than the end.

Oh, and it’s boring. No good characters or plot. No arch, no lessons learned, no conflict. Yikes! What was I thinking?

On top of that, I had also decided to conclude the story with a song. Guess what? I am not a song writer. Finishing a story with something you feel awful about can be deflating. As a challenge, I may try to write a whole song as one of my stories in the future.

What did I learn?

I liked my concept, but it wasn’t anything more than that. The whole story was based on the word “meanwhile”. Yeah, I know, I know. It was cute, but I should have started with something a bit more solid. Instead I was just hoping some story would magically appear. It didn’t. Sometimes stories will come to me if i just plow forward. Not this time.

Without strong characters and plot, it’s almost impossible to keep a story interesting.

If I’m not interested in what I am writing, a reader will never be interested.

A concept is not a story.