SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

I totally forgot to post that last week’s challenge was on a break. It was my birthday week and my wonderful husband, Jez (check out his Arbroath posts for some awesome pics), took me away on holiday to sunny Arbroath—thanks, Sweetie!

The time away gave me a little time to think about the best way to run this challenge. 

I’ve decided to go with: 

• one sprint
• maximum sprint time: 25 minutes
• maximum word count: 250 words

In the beginning, doing both sprints worked for me: the first got me primed and the second tended to be the better sprint. But, now I’m finding that I’m primed in the first sprint, and the second sprint feels wasted (if I do it.) I changed the time constraints as they were a little limiting. And finally, I think a word count limit makes it easier for readers.

I’ve changed the How it Works section (below) and the challenge information page to reflect the change.

Now, back to the challenge.

Here’s my sprint (basic editing):

Kit stepped out from the shadows into the hallway. Her heart raced as she held the keycard she’d swiped from Drew’s pocket to the reader. C’mon, c’mon. After what seemed like an eternity, the lock disengaged.

She inched open the door to Drew’s office and slipped inside. The blackout curtains cloaked the room in comforting darkness. For a moment, she just stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the lack of light, allowing the velvety darkness to embrace her. The sensation reminding her of Drew’s arms around her. 

No, damn it. This was not the time for getting all sentimental. She had a job to do—no matter what it cost her. 

The safe was in this room, Drew had all but told her it was behind the grotesque oil painting of crows. Kit removed the artwork from the wall and stalled. Everything she’d gone through: all the planning, all the lying, and all the heartache wasted. The safe wasn’t a ComTech. Drew had changed it sometime in the last week to a damned Romstadt. She wasn’t getting into the safe without a shaped charge and a fuck-ton of luck. And she was fresh out of both.

Have a great day, and thanks for reading!

HOW IT WORKS

1. Don’t think too hard on the word; just write about it for a maximum of twenty-five minutes or 250 words.
2. Once you complete your sprint, give it some basic editing.
3. Be courageous and post your results to your blog.

RULES

1. Complete the challenge on your blog before 1700 UTC of the following Friday.
2. Link to the original prompt post and make sure to use the tag Genre Scribes so that we can see all the posts together in WP Reader.
3. Your text must be fiction (preferably a genre you publish in (or plan to).
4. No real-life stories.
5. The text can be dialogue, an interior monologue, a scene, flash fiction, anything… so long as it’s fiction.

Full information is on the Genre Scribes: Friday Fiction Writing Challenge page.