Hey Storyboarders! For those of our listeners/readers/followers (however few they may be) who haven't caught on, Darren and I are writing a flash fiction piece a day (1,000 words or less) in 2013. We will both have 365 stories, and 365,000 words worth of work done by December 31st. This Sunday marks the beginning of the second week of our challenge, which means that we have successfully completed the first week of the new year. Below, you can take a gander at our thoughts and musings over the effort so far.

JELANI-

I've been excited about this challenge since the day that Darren and I fully conceived it on Episode 10 of the podcast, and that excitement isn't showing any signs of waning. So far, I've written the story of Kayla, who struggles with her faith while trapped in rubble after an earthquake. I've also recounted the unfortunate tale of two friends who fall prey to a misplaced octopus. I most enjoyed penning the tales of The greek Furies, re-imagined as African-American women in the 21st century. This week kicks off with Dana Daniel's revenge against her adulterous husband and with Robert, the waste management worker who spelunks in haunted tunnels.

I've taken a page out of Darren's book and chosen to write many entries ahead of time, in order to stay ahead of the curve. It turns out that's the key to success. I've also learned that one can do a lot in 1,000 words, if they write succinctly and deliberately, and say only what's most important. Learning this lesson has already improved my writing.

All that being said, I'm out of ideas! I now find myself reading desperately for little nuggets I can glean or perusing the "Weird News" section of Huffington Post for inspiration. I don't know how I'm going to come up with 359 more story ideas, but, a soldier must soldier on! Onward with the challenge!

DARREN-

I've been looking forward to displaying some ongoing writing projects. This off the cuff project involves a lot of time and effort from us on a consistent basis. It's not as easy as it sounds, even for two people used to writing on a daily basis.

A week in I can say that I'm as excited as ever to be producing ideas on a daily basis. The original plan that I had in mind was to write in spurts, front loading the queue with available flash fiction so that when the inevitable time comes that I'm bogged down with work and life I'll have some in the bag. That plan is still steaming ahead.

Jelani and I are planning to compile these stories into larger books to sell on Amazon. You can freely read all the flash fiction that you wish up till the running two weeks of stories for now. I will be implementing an archiving system so that you can read past the two week deadline in a few days.

I'm back to writing.

Kriss wrapped a a plastic bag around her hair and hurried out into the parking lot. She cringed as misty drizzle hit her body, threatening to turn her hair into a frizzy mess. She should have left the office earlier in the night, when it wasn't raining.

Her mother had texted her, telling her that she needed to put an end to her workaholism and head home. Never mind that she was 27. A mother still had to call her daughter and remind her that it wasn't safe to be out late.

Kriss was more worried about her hair.

Her car was roughly 100 feet from the building. She walked quickly with her head down, her purse and leather suitcase hugged tightly to her body. She should have brought an umbrella. Those were expensive items that she needed to look her best at work; it would be a shame for the rain to destroy them.

Kriss was so wrapped up in her musings that she didn't notice the white, four-door truck pull into the parking lot. By the time she realized anything, the truck was circling her, blocking the path to her car. Three men, they looked like drug-addled trailer trash, whooped and hollered from inside the cab.

"What the hell are you doing!" Kriss shouted as she tried to maneuver around the truck.

"Well, don't we have a fine looking Niggeress right here," the driver said. His face was flushed red and the lower half of it boasted a scraggly, unkempt beard. His eyes were wide, pupils beady. He was definitely high. The two other men whooped from inside the truck, but Kriss couldn't see them.

"Leave me alone," Kriss shouted. Adrenaline pumped into her veins.
The truck stopped, and the two men in the back jumped out. They were both wearing wife-beaters and dingy jeans. They looked similar to the driver. They could have all been related.

"Somebody help!" Kriss ran towards the office building. She knew she was screaming in vein; she was the last soul at work. No one would hear. Kriss's five-inch heels slowed her down, and eventually caused her to fall. She scraped her knees and palms when she hit the pavement. The men grabbed her up and threw her in the truck. They tossed her belongings in the bed.

The inside of the truck smelled like a dive bar, fetid with cheap liquor and cigarettes. The breath of her attackers smelled worse as they groped and breathed on her. She fought, kicking and punching and trying to control the wheel, until she had a Bowie knife put to her throat.

"You calm down, bitch," one of the men, who had a prominent mole on his forehead, said. "Or we're gonna slit you up like a pig on hog killing day."

"I'm sorry," Hot tears streamed down Kriss's face. "Please you don't know what your doing. Someone's will get hurt."
The driver turned and smiled wide, revealing a set of meth-ravaged teeth.

"You a funny little Niggeress aren't you? Only one in danger here is you."

Kriss sobbed as the men held her down tight.

"Shut up," the mole-man said.

Kriss stifled her tears. "I warned you," she said boldly.

"I warned you," the mole-man smacked Kriss hard in the face and she saw colors, and then nothing.

***

Kriss woke up naked, in a muddy clearing. She was stretched wide with rope between four wooden posts. When her vision adjusted, she saw the three men in front of her, wearing only their wife beaters.

"Please, you don't want to do this," Kriss writhed in the mud, trying to pull herself free she was tied fast.

"Oh, I know exactly what I want to do to you, baby," the man, who had driven the truck, said.

"Don't you have a family," Kriss moaned. "A wife and kids. A daughter?"

"Don't worry about that baby," the driver got down on his knees. He put his disgusting and dirty hands around Kriss's waist.

"You're gonna have to say goodbye to all that if you do this. You'll never see them again." Kriss was surprised by the amount of water that could come out of her eyes.

She continued to plead as the man started doing his business. She wouldn't wish this on anyone, not even the worst man in existence. This was why her mother was so protective. She shouldn't have been out late. She shouldn't have played fast and loose with her secret.

She would have a mess to clean up now.

Kriss's tears turned thick and red. She was crying The Blood now. That was always the first sign of the change. The Fury was taking over. Her abdomen and pelvis convulsed. That was the second sign. Kriss's rapist was well aware of what was going on. He tried to pull away from her, but, with new found strength, Kriss pulled her legs free of their bonds, and wrapped them around his back.

"I warned you. I'm gonna be the last woman you call baby." Kriss growled.

Blood spurted from Kriss as the teeth protracted to dismember her rapist. Kriss let him go now, with one less part of his body intact.
Kriss pulled her arms free and stood up, giving chase after the other two men, while the other lay convulsing on the ground.

The mole-man and his friend made it to the truck, but Kriss was right behind them. She crushed in the hood and engine with her fists so they couldn't go anywhere.

Kriss was the one smiling now, as the men crouched fearfully in the back of the truck. She knew they were seeing a fearsome sight. Her body was covered in the blood of hr attacker and her own tears, her eyes changed solid black with The Fury. She was the attacker now.
Kriss promised herself that she wouldn't leave too big a mess when she killed them.

I'm walking in a field. It's midday and the sun feels like that of late spring, although it could be later. When I run my hands over the high grass, it tickles my palm. My bare feet can recognize the small pebbles between them. The individual toes grasp more and more dirt as I walk up the slowly sloping hills. I walk into a clearing, not having any direction in particular, and in front of me are patches of wild flowers. They are thrown into the green like one sprinkles a donut with sugar. Each patch is more unique than the next. It starts with small blue specks and slowly grows to robust yellow flowers, each flapping in the quiet breeze. The increasing collage of color and shapes begin to form a cacophony of sight over the new rolled hill. A purple set, with rounded petals and long red stamen stand out amongst the orange tulips surrounding them. I walk over to those beautiful flowers and inspect them closer. It is with the gentlest of touch that I free a flower from the stem. Pollen and other debris shake out as I hold it closer to my face. I eat it, and it tastes like a reminder of home. Back to that place I called home. I've walked so far from there, I can't remember the way out of this field even. But with these surroundings, I can't imagine a way home.

I lie down in the grass, hands outstretched grasping at the grass and flowers. I can smell the plants around me. Closer to me now than ever is my memory of her, the most beautiful flower. We lied in the grass once, years ago. Just before the dawn at her family's farm. We walked through a crisp meadow, pointing out the most beautiful flowers we could find. I pointed to her and told her that I couldn't find any more beautiful. We held hands and talked about the future as if there was always a future. Only a future. I wish she was with me now. So I could look into her eyes and tell her things, see her gentle cheeks that I adore kissing, her soft skin as I run my hand over curves. The grass I feel now can't compare to her. She belonged with me forever. I belonged with her, and I hated to leave her.

My head snaps as I hear a gunshot overhead. It must have come from over the hill, down the field.

But, of course, that field is only in my head. I'm currently peeking toward a field of mud, barbed wire, unexploded shells, and whizzing bullets. My periscope peers over the trench as I scan right to left, then left to right. We'll make a charge within a minute, and I'm not nervous anymore. The chance that I've survived two already means that another tempt at fate will blunt more nervousness.

Ironically, someone far from the front who can't be named or ever found would never know my pestilence. His wife was bringing him a basket of flowers for their table's center. It was time for their children to run home, smiling and give their parents a chance to complain about their muddy feet. I should of had that, but the war took that from me.

The whistle blows and I grab the ladder with all that I know. Each step up takes me one closer to a few feet below. I'm surrounded by men all storming over the same obstacle, most of them closer to the same as me, but all finding the courage to mount it.

It's a quarter mile to the other line, and I can't even see where the darts of light are coming from. The noise is a theater of instruments, all out of key, designed to destroy me. From the shelling, the bullets, and the yelling I can't hear anything but my own breath, like I'm underwater. As I run through the myriad of destruction and death, I can't even pretend to say that I'm thinking. It is more an instinctual frantic pace of thought. Cover here. Run there. Friend dying there. Find cover. Run there.

The midday spring sun falls on my face as I fall into a crater. I clinch my rifle closer to me, cleaning out the bolt action in case I make it the full quarter. My thoughts take me back to her eyes. I could see the sun falling in the sky behind her. The night overtaking me more than her. She smiled as I made a joke. It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen.

A soldier falls into the crater with me, startling me as I was facing the opposite lines. He is writhing in pain. His eyes blazing with sincere panic and frustration. He's been hit in the gut, and with no way to hold in his intestines, I can see him trying to hold down the bloody tubes himself. I leave and run forward onto the hill. I can't do a thing for him, the ugliest thing I'd ever see.

I'm struck in the knee about thirty yards from the crater. I limp to a destroyed truck five more yards to my left. I lean up against the pinging steel and I can feel bursts around me. Shock is taking me to a place I'd never expect: painless.

As I feel the blood flood into my lungs my head falls to the side in exhaustion. As my sight fades, I see a flower poking out of an exploded shell. It's purple petals are beautiful.

The Storyboarders have set a high bar for themselves. They plan to each write a 1,000 word flash fiction short story a day for the entire year of 2013. Who knows what they will come up with throughout the year. It will be quite a challenge to continue the creative dredging. Either way it will be an adventure.

I am creating a new page on the site to display the work they produce. The link will be permanently under the topmost section. I will be constantly updating the page on a daily basis with the stories and I will be implementing archiving and category system so that you can easily browse the work.

We look forward to the new year.

The other day, Darren was on one of his frequent tangents when he lamented: "Jelani, you're a completely different person when you're around me!" I laughed, assuring him that he knew me as well as anyone else, but after this conversation, my writer's mind immediately went to thinking about what Darren had said in terms of character development and creating a realistic, multi-dimensional person on the blank page.

Darren had touched upon an important and, frankly, universal truth. People act differently depending on their environment, or depending on who they are with. It is with different people and in different situations that we reveal layers of ourselves. As human beings, we are not flat or stagnant. We are dynamic entities that choose when and where to close ourselves off, to open up, to tell all, or to keep quiet.

Just as we are, so should be the characters that we create as writers. A character will pop off the page like a real person if you can show the dynamic nature of their personality. One of the best ways to do that is by bouncing them off other characters in their environment.

Imagine this, there is a woman, let's call her Regina, who is a young wife, school teacher, and mother. The first person she sees in the morning is her husband. Depending on whether she is in a good mood with him, she gives him an affectionate kiss before getting out of bed, or simply bolts up with out a word. In the mirror of interactions with her husband, Regina's emotions may seem fickle or volatile, swaying depending on the situation.

When Regina is getting her daughter ready for school, we see a sweet gentle woman, dressing her child and giving her encouraging words for the day. At school, another side of Regina is revealed with her students. She is still kind and nurturing yes, but she is willing to approach misbehaving students with a sternness that she never reserves for her own daughter. With coworkers, we see that Regina has the potential for a bit of cattiness, a necessary trait to survive politics on a staff dominated by women.

And then, most importantly, there is Regina's secret. An aspect of her that no one in any of her spheres of interaction know about. She is a zombie slayer by night, saving the world by keeping the hordes of the undead, who are fleeing from an overpacked Hell, at bay.

There are many more tricks to make Regina an interesting and entertaining character, but she is already on the way to being infinitely dynamic through the simple strategy of highlighting her interactions with different groups of people, both alive and undead.

Thus, the next time a character is feeling flat or unimaginitive, do them a favor and apply the strategy of interaction.

Currently, I'm struggling with a problem common to many green writers: finishing projects. Finishing projects is arguably the most important part of the writing process. Creating the beginning of a story is easy. Yes, it may be hard to come up with that definitive hook that will pull a reader into the story, but as far as the general writing goes, nothing compares to jumping into a world of your own creation for the first time and enjoying the fresh characters and plot situations therein.

The creative task gets dicy when one reaches the middle of a writing project. The initial fun of writing the beginning of a story goes away. The honeymoon phase disintegrates with all the chaos of an asteroid entering orbit, and suddenly, plot problem after plot problem arises. At this point, the fun ends, and the real work and plot hole plugging must begin. It doesn't help that the mind is starting to get bored, or even annoyed with characters. And worse. the story feels trite, contrived, and devoid of its initial magic.

Many potentially brilliant works may never see the light of day because they were discarded during the swampy middle, abandoned around 30,000 words or so. It ends up on the "failure" pile, along with the other innumerable unfinished works. And, the real tragedy of this is that the essential lessons from finishing a story or book are never learned.

The swampy middle may be fraught with danger, but ending a story is hardest. The main plots and subplots must be tied up. Each character must complete their designated arch of change. The conclusion must seem holistic and complete. A writer gains essential knowledge and understanding of story by finishing what they start. And, furthermore, the editing process, where the real writing begins, can't commence unless a story has its beginning, middle, and end.

I've found that not finishing projects reduces confidence and creates disillusionment with the creative process, the vicious cycle becoming more painful with each uncompleted project. It also becomes more difficult to conceptualize and start story ideas once the syndrome of not finishing is in its advanced stages.

I have an emphatic rule against making New Years Resolutions, but I am taking a risk and breaking that rule in the New Year. I'm resolving to finish every story I start, no matter how shoddy or awful it turns out in the end. There is always editing, and I won't miss out on those valuable lessons that come from seeing a project through to completion.

The Storyboarder Podcast was made possible by the uncanny forging of friendship between writers Darren Jaworski and Jelani Sims. Through their studies at Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, they became brothers in crime, with dreams of somehow broadcasting a quirky New World Order to the masses.

It was in the summer of 2012 that Jaworski and Sims, soon to be known as The Storyboarders, hatched their plan.

They would start a podcast.

The stage was set. The Storyboarders had already perfected a personal brand of comedic relief, tried and tested to perfection amongst their circle of friends. Common ground was also found in the passion for writing and current events that they shared. They quickly decided that their podcast would be a comedic and fresh approach to the world of the publishing industry and the writing strategies that one needs to be successful therein. With this mission in mind, The Storyboarder came into being.

The Storyboarder has some big plans for the coming months. The podcast already has six episodes in the cache. If you are just now joining us, catch up on the last episodes of the show where The Storyboarders discuss Atticus Finch, zombie ninjas, monkeys and bananas, the publishing industry, writing craft, and the day-to-day musings of the creative mind. We also managed to grab some enlightened interviews with librarian Kristal Boulden (episode 4) and independent author Steven Thorn (episode 6).

The podcast is not The Storyboarder's only frontier. The Storyboarder Podcast's website will eventually, with time, a forum and complete community will be created where writers can escape their isolated writing regiments to talk with peers and like minds. The podcast is currently in the process of moving to iTunes as well, and can be listened to at Soundcloud.com. Video and interactive components are also in the works, so that listeners can eventually have faces to associate with our voices. The Storyboarder is a multi-platform endeavor that seeks to eventually be a foremost voice in the writing and author world.

Although Darren and Jelani are often awkward and amiss when it comes to social interaction, they love to talk to people. The Storyboarder is fielding love notes (Jelani reads those), hate mail (that's Darren's job), questions, comments, and concerns at their Twitter account, @TheStoryboarder. They can also be contacted via email at storyboarderpod@gmail.com. Again, address hate mail to Darren Jaworski and kind love notes and compliments to Jelani Sims.

This inaugural blog post is a call to all writers, creators of story, and their fans. Join us in our New World Order, where we promote good stories, perfection of craft, and the intelligent critique of both. The Storyboarders want to hear, read, and see great stories. We know that you do too. Join us on our journey and we will point you in the direction of those great stories, and we promise to have you laughing the whole way.

Welcome to the website. I designed it for ease of play of the podcasts. The most recent will have a Soundcloud imbed at the top so that you can comment throughout the episode. The rest are listed on the lefthand side.
There are still bugs so don't fret. This is the blog section that will house a running section of blog posts from Jelani and myself (and guests). Before you even ask, yes this is me.

I'm really happy that you are here, and can't wait to show you what I've got coming down the pipeline.