The Story Game

For a few days there's been a new link up on my sidebar for The Story Game. For those of you who haven't clicked over yet, I thought I'd tell you more about that site, maybe perhaps convince you to follow that link.

The Story Game is something that The Boy and His Brother came up with during the fall of '05 (in fact the first pitch was written during The Boy and I's bar trip to Curacao - boy should I post some pics from that trip!) Anywhoo, back to the topic at hand... their site gives a short spiel on how it all got started but basically they decided that they wanted to do more writing and that it would work best if they had some sort of deadline. You know, the pressure to write. They also decided that they'd try writing on one topic per week (called The Pitch) and that they'd limit the writing to around 2 pages.

And almost without fail they have followed through on their promise to each other. It really is truly amazing to watch. There were some glitches to be worked out in the beginning (early on we were all on a trip together and the deadline was looming and neither had written their story and they were about this close to just extending the deadline but they didn't and that's caused them to push through every week since). Not only do they write the pages, but then they call each other and spend hours on the phone talking about not just about writing, but about life.

I have to say, I think the whole thing is amazing. Not just that these two brothers continue to write, continue to pitch and to amaze each other, but that they have the type of relationship where this matters, where sometimes a pitch isn't just about the writing.

I'm not gonna lie - it makes me love The Boy even more.

But I digress... the reason I point this out is because they are great writers. Their stories range from the humurous to the haunting (in more than one way) to the to very succint. There's folklore, sci-fi, and just plain silly. And they post every week.

There are many reasons I think you should bookmark their page. Not only is it great writing, but it's also a lot of fun (and not high maintenance). The page is there for when you need a brief diversion, a reminder of writing for the love of the craft. Plus, if all else fails they post the new pitch for the week on Sunday (the same time they post their writing on the pitch from the week before) and it makes a great writing exercise. Go ahead, write something. I know they don't have comment availability but if you feel the need to share I'll post it on my blog. At the very least it shows you just how many ways there are to approach the same topic (some of you may be familiar with Diana's Great Blog Voice Experiment).

So give it a shot and enjoy The Story Game! The stories are snack size and we all need a little snack every now and again!