I wrote “Watch Me As I Bleed” for the August 2008 writing challenge at Absolute Chaos. That month, each author who signed up was challenged by a fellow writer or reader to write a kind of story they’d never done or something outside their comfort zone.
My challenge came from Rose, and it was as follows:
I challenge Julie to write a very violent horror story.
3/5 of the backstreet boys MUST die.
The killer cannot be a Backstreet Boy but must be a celebrity. A human one lol.
There must be at least one graphic death scene
It cannot be a dream
And I believe that about covers it.
There was also this stipulation from Mare for all challenges:
None of these stories should exceed 3,000 words. Most challenges I find are working best with a smaller word count.
I deliberately ended the story on exactly 3,000 words and left a cliffhanger.
Three years later, I finally followed up with a sequel called “In Pieces” that tells the rest of the story I intended to write.