I thought it might be a good idea to blog in the middle of a contest, especially given the first stage is a full week. That is unusual. Most of the time contests are single story events and most of the time in that type of event writers are given either weeks to develop their story or 24 hours. Having no more and no less than a week is a strange luxury for me. I'm not sure how to proceed without a ticking bomb in my ear.

This is another NYC Midnight event (the 2010 Short Story Challenge) so the way it works is similar to other contests of theirs I've entered. Entrants are divided into smaller, more manageable groups. Each group is given a genre and a "thing" to revolve the plot around. My group was given Comedy as the genre and A Gang as its thing. There are about 660 of us starting out in 30 groups so there's no lack of competition.

With each contest, my confidence grows and my nervousness diminishes. After last year's 4-stage contest, a two-stager with a soft first stage seems like child's play. That is not to say I'm not taking it seriously, only I know better what the judges are looking for a little better and I"m familiar with their preferred formatting and submission process.

So what about the story itself? Comedy. A Gang.

As soon as I saw Comedy, I breathed a sigh of relief. Comedy is a genre I have to intentionally avoid if I'm working on a serious piece so being allowed to run with it in this case should be a real relief. A Gang being the thing we're plotting around was not as satisfying.

As I saw it, I had two pretty obvious choices:

• An urban gang, something we white folks probably think we know a lot more about than we actually do. Going in that direction felt like an easy trap to fall into;
• Other criminal organizations; or, 

But I didn't want to go with the obvious, so I dug into the deepest recesses of my memory to pull out less-than-obvious ways I could comply with A Gang.

I came up with:

• Gang of Four, the leftist Chinese faction during the Cultural Revolution, which I knew too little about to choose; 
• A chain gang, which could really have some hilarious potential.
• Various takes on gang bangs, which for reasons of taste and propriety, I chose to avoid; 
• Our Gang (aka The Little Rascals) which I counted out as already comedic fiction; or, 
• the one I decided to choose, a Press Gang.

A Press Gang, for those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, was a group of government officials or sailors or others authorized to do so, who forceably recruited able-bodied men between the ages of 15 and 45 into service in the Royal Navy from 1664, begun during the reign of Elizabeth I, to 1812 following the defeat of Napoleon. The gangs were a hated lot that, at the time, were a humorless lot. Now, however, thinking about their trickery, fooling or abducting drunkards and the homeless into service, there is only stuff to laugh at.

And two days into the stage, I've written some and have a good idea of where the story is going, but I'll wait until I've fleshed out more of if before sharing. Let it suffice to say, even after I've written the whole story, there will only be some that I'll be able to share here. There is a definite off-color element to it that might not be appropriate -- okay, will undoubtedly be  inappropriate -- for younger or more sensitive eyes.

I'll keep you posted.