You may have noticed two tabs missing from the Home page of the blog, replaced by two new ones.

My beloved Flash! Friday micro fiction weekly contest is no more. The moderator decided it was time to focus on her own writing. I’ll miss my weekly dragon queen’s offerings, but at least she stopped for a reason I can understand.

I hadn’t participated in Friday Fictioneers in quite some time. It’s still a lively and vibrant site and definitely a place to go if you want to practice writing short, short, short fiction, as in, 100-word fiction. I feel that between Flash! Friday and Friday Fictioneers, I learned a great deal about flash fiction, and I want to move onto something new.

To show I haven’t given up flash fiction, take a look at the new tab “RSC Mini Stories.” Journalist and author Jennie Coughlin has started posting a daily photo prompt using Rory’s Story Cubes on her Instagram account. She posts her own mini-story there, but I’m using the photo prompt to write some flash fiction on my blog. There have been seven prompts so far, so seven mini-stories for you to read.

The other new tab on my blog is “Haiku.” I’ve loved the Haiku form since I learned it in high school and college. I’ve recently learned, however, that the five-seven-five syllable set-up is bogus because of the differences between written English and Japanese. A modern, American haiku is still three lines (maybe) but is generally between ten and seventeen syllables. So, I’m going to give a haiku a day a try. Because 2016 is a leap year, that’ll be 366 haiku–if I’m up to it.

I’m going to use Rory’s Story Cubes for this as well. Each day, I’ll post a picture of three cubes, and I’ll write a haiku based on my interpretation of them. And that the fun thing about Rory’s Story Cubes: They can mean whatever you want them to mean, and your imagination can run away with itself.

I encourage you to join me in both endeavors and post your mini-stories and/or haiku in the comments on each of my posts. And let’s have fun.