Being an Endeverite Part 1
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| The second image from "The Tiniest Enchilada" |
In an attempt to start a blog series, I labeled this Part 1. We'll see how many parts I end up with, and if I can even keep track of them all.
As you know, I signed a contract with a small press called, Endever Publishing Studios. Though I was leery at first -- signing with small presses comes with a lot of anxiety, even established small presses -- but I felt like this was a risk I had to take for my novel, THE BLOOD OF SEVEN.
I'm glad I did. This publishing house is like a second family.
In this first installment of "Being an Endeverite," I'd like to talk about some of the authors. I'll have a separate blog series in which I interview them, but for now, this piece is about what I call the Short Story Prompt Challenge.
Each week, an in-house author at Endever challenges another to write a 1,000 word short story with a challenging prompt. Author Heather Eagar challenged me with the following message:
“Claire, I am challenging you! You get to write a story that includes the world’s biggest stuffed bear, the world’s smallest enchilada, and an average size hippopotamus.”
At first I thought, how in the hell am I going to write THAT story? Then, I looked up the World's Largest Teddy Bear and found his name is Evan. And so, Evan was born. With a main character name in mind, I sat down and started writing. The tiniest enchilada part was easier, because I love animal videos and I, like Evan, remembered seeing the one with the hamster eating tiny burritos. It's only natural to wonder about other small foods, right? And even MORE natural (naturaler?) to wonder about other small Mexican foods. The story just sort of took off from there. As soon as the line, "Not when the world was ending," sprung from my fingertips onto the keys, I knew where this was going.
But I didn't want your standard zombie story.
Thus, The Tiniest Enchilada came forth into the world, crying and naked and covered in green sores. Gasp... it was infected! (At the link above, you can read the story and see the video).
Fishubby loves it when I read out loud, because I do all the voices and everything. So, I asked Jaime, Marketing Guru at Endever, if I could present my story as a dramatic reading. Then I took it even further. First I considered a video of me reading it, but thought that would be boring. So, I pulled on my animation/drawing background and drew over 40 pictures to accompany the text.
It took probably 10-15 hours to put this less than 7 minute movie together, but it was so worth it. I had so much fun!
I didn't like having to do a man's voice, so I had Fishubby do Evan's thoughts and dialogue.
I hope you enjoy my little movie!
In conclusion, being an Endeverite is awesome.
Peace and Keep Writing,
Claire L. Fishback
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