Okay, I’ll admit I did it.

Lots of writers do it.

I’m talking about experiment–

Just taking off and writing something one day that you end up being quite surprised that it came out of you.

I said I’d put up a freebie this weekend, and I had a specific story in mind.

“Eternal”, is another short I wrote in response to a prompt. ‘Eternal’ was the challenge word tossed out to writers for that blog’s weekly writing competition, and I ended up producing a story from out my imagination that left me perplexed about who I was as a writer.

“Eternal” definitely illustrates the edgier curves I can take, an edge which I believe is completely absent from my first published short story, BLACKOUT IN THE GARDEN OF LOVE, a sweet romance.  “Eternal” is an urban fantasy, the genre I expected to be writing until romance came along and captured my attention.  Don’t get me wrong though, “Eternal” is very much a love story. Sure, both cops in the story have ladies, –but the love at the core of their partnership was what I had planned to showcase. I’m a sucker for great partnership stories, and was eagerly looking forward to writing one. Someday, I believe I’ll be drawn back to telling the story of these two cops against the world. For now, I’m left to wonder about what this story is telling me about the kinds of stories hiding inside in my head, and where might I end up as a writer if I let them all out.

While I’ve found my place writing interracial romance, I can’t know for certain if it’s a forever and always kind of thing.  Perhaps one day I’m going to find myself giving into the call to experiment again, and who knows what genre that story might be. Actually, I think whether I develop “Eternal” into a full novel or not, I’ll forever have the experience and wonder of seeing what happened when I just let my imagination go.  I think it’s something I should do more often.

As we focus on our current project or the one right after it, we can get so plugged in to order and planning, and structure. Yes, all of that stuff is important and necessary, and I’m only beginning to learn just how really important they are if you’re trying to finish a project. I wonder though, as writers, if part of what we owe ourselves is to just step away from all we know or think we know, and just let it rip. See what happens, if only just for that rush of creating something new and foreign—but organically all our own.

It’s worth a try. If you haven’t tried it–go ahead and see what happens! Who knows what might learn about your writing?

“Eternal” isn’t edited, there’s lots of incomplete phrases,  weird punctuation, and some folks, if they dig deep, might find content issues—but, on the whole, I think there’s more good than bad. It’s an ‘as is’ for now, perhaps someday I’ll be come back here to say it’s my next project!

Who knows? 🙂

Check it out in my excerpts section here: (oh, mild warning for language & violence.)

~venice