SSSBC June Vlog + Story Excerpt #1!

BLAHHHHHH WE'RE A MONTH INTO SSSBC AND THIS IS SO MUCH HARDER THAN I ANTICIPATED!!! I totally underestimated what it would be like jumping back into creative writing and while I'm having a great time and really enjoying my story and the way it is developing, it is soooo much harder to fall into this form of creativity and navigate my way around it. Over this past month I've learned two major things:

1. I really love writing dialogue.

2. I suck at prioritizing writing and making time for my story!

These two things are the theme throughout my June SSSBC vlog (especially the second one) and I am struggling for some advice on techniques to make things like writing a priority. If you have any advice you can share with me, please let me know either in the comments of this blog or in the comments of my writing vlog. Any and all advice is appreciated!

Anywho, here are two of the more exciting parts of this blog post: my writing vlog and my story excerpt. Yes, you read that right. I'm only providing you an excerpt of my story and not the whole thing. Why you ask? Well, as mentioned above, I've found returning to creative writing extremely challenging and I haven't been making time to write, so my money is on that this story isn't going to have a first draft until the end of the summer. I've decided to focus on writing this story throughout the entire summer and shoot to have a first draft (fingers crossed) by the time August is over. Will it happen? WHO KNOWS?! That's for future Riley to figure out.

Keep going for my June writing vlog and an excerpt from my story that I'm particularly fond of! :D


This excerpt is part of the very first scene in my current draft. In this scene I'm trying to introduce our main trio, Beth, Sam, and Jon, as well as establish a world where caffeine is illegal. You'll notice, as I pointed out earlier in this post, that I really love dialogue and figuring out how our main characters interact with each other. This is a very small excerpt, but to be totally honest, this is about 10% of everything I have written so far. Gives you an idea of how well I did with writing in June! :P Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

We stood there as the crew loaded up the town’s last green mermaid sign into the back of the truck and watched as the truck pulled out of the shopping plaza parking lot. “I guess that’s it,” said Sam as she held down the record button to document the finality of the moment on her Snap story. “Bastards,” I muttered under my breath, shaking my head. “You know,” Jon chimed in, “I thought I would get used to seeing this happen, but my soul still dies a little bit every time one of our caffeine bearing sirens gets carted off like this.” “That’s the thing,” Sam responded. “There won’t be any more caffeine bearing sirens after today. No more running on Dunkin’. No more random hockey playing coffee distributors. No more-” “We get it,” I grumbled. There very well could have been an actual black cloud of despair floating over my head. “There, there, Beth,” cooed Jon, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “We’ll get through this together.” “I just don’t see why,” I continued, “of all things, they had to take away caffeine. CAFFEINE! As if that’s the worst substance on the planet!” “Look on the bright side,” said Jon. “At least there’s still doughnuts!” He produced a box containing an assorted dozen from behind his back. Sam and I stared at him, eyes wide. “Have you had that this whole time?” asked Sam, perplexed at where he could have been hiding it. Jon popped the box open and presented us with the goods. Instinctively Sam snapped a photo with her phone. I swear that thing is attached to her hand. “#SurpriseDoughnuts. #EatingOurSadnessAway. #RIPStarbucksForever.” Sam typed away furiously. I tentatively took a chocolate glazed out of the box. “I guess we might as well enjoy these while we still can, right? I mean it’s only a matter of time before they outlaw sugar, too.” “Right along with freedom of speech and happiness as we know it,” chirped Jon.