Flash Fiction

Friday Fictioneers–Cure for the Common Cold?

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Friday Fictioneers LogoThe common cold is uncommon in its inconvenience. Nothing will put it off when it’s determined to put you low, and this week it won the sparring match we’d been having for the previous several days. And “put me low” was apt; I barely lifted my head from the pillow for three days. Monday’s usual writing blog post? No way. Wednesday’s usual political blog post? Nope. I didn’t even have the energy to look at David Stewart’s wonderful photo until Thursday evening.

But I wasn’t going to let rhinopharyngitis keep me from Friday Fictioneers. Not to be too descriptive, but I settled in this morning with my ubiquitous glass of water (fluids, you know) and box of tissues (I’m on my fourth one) and studied the incredible sculpture in David’s photo. It reminded me of a sculpture I saw frequently when I worked in Washington, DC, The Awakening. The Awakening once graced Haines Point in DC, but awakeningwhen a dispute arose between the artist and the U.S. Park Service over maintenance, the sculpture moved to the new National Harbor complex south of DC, where the I-95/I-495 bridge links Virginia and Maryland.

Both sculptures are evocative, but today’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt was somehow eerier and had a more visceral impact. The result is “Suzuki Method.” The concept that dawned is far better than the result my cold-addled brain produced, but, hey, it’s the first writing I’ve done all week. And that says a lot.

As usual, if you don’t see the link on the title above, go the the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of this post, click on it, and select the story from the drop-down list.

Friday Fictioneers On the Wing

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Friday Fictioneers LogoThe Friday Fictioneers’ photo prompts are always challenging as well as inspiring, but this week’s is especially meaningful. It represents where I spent more than half of my adult life–in and around airplanes–and Rich Vaza’s stunning photo brought out the occasional poet in me.

I’ll confess it. I love airplanes. I love the look of them, the feel of them, the smell of them. The emotions evoked while flying are sometimes better than sex. I can relive my first solo from thirty-plus years ago step-by-step, and I loved working around airplane people for three decades. We used to do a little riff in the office, usually to enliven a Monday morning. “I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning!” one would offer. “It’s the smell of freedom,” came the reply. (A far more appealing use of that phrasing that than offered by Robert Duval in Apocalypse Now, don’t you think?) I’m tickled pink that a recent switch in approach paths to Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport brings planes over my house. I love that noise, and I’d missed it.

And, yes, I take it too personally when someone, usually someone not in the know, says they’re dangerous or that they’re too afraid to get on board. Bottom line? You’re safer in an airplane than staying in your house, where home accidents take far more people a year than commercial aviation.

“Ad Astra” is a 100-word prose poem, one that’s probably far too maudlin and laudatory, but it’s how I feel. If you don’t see the link on the title, scroll to the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select it from the drop-down list.

An Artful Friday Fictioneers

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Friday Fictioneers LogoI’m off to my first writing conference of the year today–the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins University. It was supposed to be last weekend, but The Weather Channel convinced the organizers that Winter Storm Khan (cue William Shatner voice) would make the road messy. So, they postponed the conference to this weekend.

Winter Storm Khan didn’t materialize, at least here in the Shenandoah Valley, but it was too late to make a change to the change. I’ll report on the conference next week.

This week’s Friday Fictioneer’s inspiration photo immediately brought to mind one of those inane conversations you overhear at a modern art museum. You know the one that usually poses the question, “But is it art?” I’ve even participated in a few of those myself.

On purpose, there are no dialogue tags and no indication of the gender, or number, of speakers. I leave it up to the reader to delve the meanings behind “Hephaestus’ Wedge.” (A Google search for “Athena’s birth” might reveal one of them.)

If you don’t see the link on the title above, then click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of this post and select it from the drop-down list.

A Sunny Friday Fictioneers

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Friday Fictioneers LogoThis week’s inspiration photograph was a welcome contrast to the weather we’ve been having here in central Virginia–it was five degrees Centigrade upon waking this morning, and the forecast is for snow on Friday. That’s enough to make one long for tropical shores.

I grew up in a land-locked county in Virginia, and, in fact, didn’t learn to swim until I was an adult because my mother managed to instill a fear of water in me. Having a significant other who owned a boat was impetus enough to be more safe while out on the water, and luckily my local parks and rec gave adult swim lessons. It was one of those times where you learn something and wish you hadn’t wasted all those years avoiding it.

I loved swimming and loved being in the water. The SO and I eventually bought a house on a tributary of the Patuxent River in Maryland, and we vacationed at a lakehouse owned by him and his brother in eastern Connecticut. Both places got me out of being a pool-only swimmer. Then, there was the ocean.

Today’s 100-word story is “And When We Go Back to the Sea.” In addition to the photo, a quote from President John F. Kennedy also inspired it:

“All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came.”

If you don’t see the link on the story title, go to the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of this post and click on it. Then, you can select the story from the drop-down menu.

Friday Fictioneers – Ignore Your First Impressions

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Friday Fictioneers LogoWhen I first saw this week’s photo prompt, I wondered, “Oy! [No pun intended.] How will I ever come up with something for this?”

Now, other photos have posed quite the challenge, but this one–again, I say, oy!

Then, I stepped back–much like the protagonist in the story–and noticed, ooh, my favorite word, the juxtaposition of the objects. That hinted at a person, an object, and a place, and they brought to mind a game I’ve played with friends for hours at a time–Clue. (You know–Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the lead pipe.)

So, that meant this had to be a mystery, posed, investigated, and solved in 100 words. Easy, peasy, right? And I managed to work in two, other pop culture references into “My Fair Clue.” Can you spot them?

As a writer, sometimes you have to ignore your first impressions. You know, the ones that whisper to you that you’ll never come up with a story. Sometimes, you just have to look at things from a different angle, and, lo and behold, the story was there all along.

As usual, if you don’t see the link on the title above, scroll up to the top of this post and click on the Friday Fictioneers tab. Then, you can select the story from the drop-down list.

A Musical Friday Fictioneers

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Friday Fictioneers LogoDon’t worry; I won’t be regaling you with my lack of musical skill. Actually, I’m a pretty decent soprano, but singing my stories? Nah.

Today’s photo prompt was a poser for a non-instrument player, like me. I thought the instruments in the photo were one thing but decided to check that out with some musician friends, who set me on the correct path. I hope.

For my story I decided they were bass violins. Cellos made the word count easier to finesse, but I’m a stickler for accuracy. Any time I’ve been to live orchestral concerts, I always watch the players of stringed instruments. I play a little guitar (emphasis on “a little”), but I’m always captivated by the passion the players of stringed instruments display. I mean, watch Yo-Yo Ma. If he isn’t making love to that cello…

I hope you enjoy “Love, With Strings Attached,” and if I got the instruments wrong, close your eyes and pretend. As usual, if you can’t see the link on the title of the story, scroll to the top of the page, click on Friday Fictioneers, then select the story from the drop-down list.

Happy New Year, Friday Fictioneers!

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Happy New Writing Year!

The holidays are great, but they’re over at last. No rushing about shopping or cooking or cleaning up a mound of discarded wrapping paper. The relatives have all gone home, and no more guilt-trips about spending time with your lap top, doing that, you know, hobby thing you do, writing.

I managed to keep to my writing schedule between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but not much else, and I, for one, am glad to be getting back to the writing/revising/reading schedule I’ve become comfortable with. If I don’t, the guilt-trips will come from me.

Friday Fictioneers LogoThis first Friday Fictioneers of 2013 has an apt inspiration photo, and it took me to my usual genre–the thriller. Yes, it’s a bit B-movie, a bit noir, but I hope when you read it you get that I tried to juxtapose beauty and something normal with something dark and abnormal.

That’s what usually attracts me to read fiction, the contrasts between dark and light, good and evil, the usual and the unusual. I’ve often wondered why that is. You’d think with the disruptive life I had, I’d want no surprises in my fiction. I do probably read more literary fiction than anything else, but I often need my dose of something that wrenches me from normalcy, because, well, otherwise life–and reading–would be boring.

Today’s story is “Indulgences,” and, as usual, if you don’t see the link on the title, scroll to the top of this post and click on the Friday Fictioneers tab. Then, you can select “Indulgences” from the drop-down list.

The Year of Writing Constantly

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At least that’s the way it felt, but that’s a good thing.

About a year ago, I blogged about getting more serious about writing and establishing a writing work schedule that included developing new material, editing/revising WIPs, and submitting stories for publication. Here is the schedule I came up with:

Monday 0800 – 1000: Blog about writing or publish a book review on my blog
1400 – 1700: Edit/revise a novel WIP

Tuesday 0800 – 1100: Edit/revise a short story or identify a publication to submit to
1400 – 1700: Edit/revise a novel WIP

Wednesday 0900 – 1100: Blog about politics
1400 – 1700: Edit/revise a novel WIP

Thursday 0800 – 1100: Edit/revise a short story or identify a publication to submit to
1400 – 1700: Something new—a short story or a novel idea

Friday 0800 – 1000: Blog about writing, publish a book review on my blog, and/or 100-word flash fiction
1300 – 1500: Submissions—the actual act of doing so—or developing a query letter

Saturday and Sunday: Two to three hours of reading and/or writing reviews

The good news is the blogging, editing/revising, and writing original material went very well, as did the reading and reviewing. I had several reviews published, and I read approximately fifty books this year, a record for me.

The bad news is even though I submitted more times than I did the previous year–ten altogether–and I had three short stories published, I didn’t submit as much as I had planned. The rejections made me focus on whether getting short stories published in literary or genre publications was a goal I still wanted to pursue or whether getting a novel or two ready for agent query was what I wanted.

I decided the latter was where I needed to put my energy. I continued to write 100-word flash fiction for Friday Fictioneers, and I turned several of those stories into a manuscript I have submitted to a fiction chapbook contest. I also wrote slightly longer flash fiction for a writer friend’s Rory’s Story Cube Challenge. Those stories became the flash fiction collection recently published entitled Spy Flash. Late in the year, I started participating in the Flash! Friday challenge from the Shenandoah Valley Writers–two of my entries have won the weekly challenge.

I joined a fiction critique group this year and put a novel-length manuscript through the critique process. A War of Deception was an interesting piece to write. It initially started out as a fictional account of uncovering a mole in the FBI, but a subplot rose that I fleshed out more at the suggestion of the critique group members. This is a manuscript I think is in good enough shape to query to agents, and that’s my big New Year’s Writing Resolution. A second manuscript, Self-Inflicted Wounds, is before the critique group now.

I finished the rough draft of a totally new novel-length piece for National Novel Writing Month, which I’ll begin revising in the spring. A major revision to Self-Inflicted Wounds will be on tap for 2013 as well. Friday Fictioneers and Friday! Flash will continue, as will the Rory’s Story Cube Challenge–there could be a Spy Flash 2 in the future! Both the writing and the political blogs will continue, too.

And there’s always that trilogy on domestic terrorism I’ve worked on for the past fifteen years.

I didn’t put this in the writing schedule, but I resolved this year to attend more writing conferences and workshops, and six was the magic number. The Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop was the most challenging but the most rewarding. I’m starting a bit earlier for 2013, with the Roanoke Writers Conference in January.

Overall, the writing work schedule was a success, even if I didn’t adhere to it exactly as I designed it. I think if I hadn’t been flexible about it, I probably wouldn’t have accomplished as much as I did.

So, Happy New Year to all my readers and my writer friends. I’m looking forward to journeying next year with all of you down that unexpected path toward publication.

The Final Friday Fictioneers of 2012

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Friday Fictioneers LogoWhen you’re a kid who desperately wants to be grown, a year progresses with agonizing slowness–the source of saying you’re “10 1/2” or “12 3/4.” When you reach your maturity, time seems to blaze by, much to your dismay, and you become more and more vague about your age.

The year 2012 was supposed to be the end of all things, but, well, someone really misinterpreted the Mayans. The term “loses something in translation” was in play regarding those end-of-the-world predictions. But in this week between Christmas and New Year’s we’re subjected to the “top ten” lists for the year, as well as all the other finalities implicit for the ending of that year, Friday Fictioneers included.

Friday Fictioneers in 2012 expanded upon its original iteration in 2011 and brought together a diverse community of writers, who wrote thousands of stories, each unique and worthy, and amassed more than a quarter million words. We weathered a change of command with hardly a blink of the eye because it’s the concept of Friday Fictioneers that endures–that unfettered creativity in a group of people who support and encourage each other.

What is true, though, is that this is the final Friday of 2012, and, therefore, the final Friday Fictioneers of the year. I guess it should be a really good story, eh?

I’ve always been fascinated by the lost opportunity. I’ve lost dates, job opportunities, and a lifetime of experiences when some mechanism holds me back–habit, fear, uncertainty. Whichever it is, it represents the something that will never be. There’s always a tale to be told in those moments that never happen, and I found one in this week’s story, “Habits, and Hearts, are Made to be Broken.” This story is a bit of a departure for me. Some might even call it sappy or cliched, but to me it exemplifies the lost opportunity.

If you don’t see the link on the lengthy title above, scroll to the top of this post and click on the Friday Fictioneers tab. You can then select today’s story from the drop-down menu.

Next Friday will be in a new year, one where I’m sure Friday Fictioneers will continue to grow. Happy New Year, all!

Friday Fictioneers is Sometimes a Challenge

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Friday Fictioneers LogoThe talent of those who participate in Friday Fictioneers continues to amaze and delight me. Considering Friday Fictioneers founder, Madison Woods, left some very big shoes (figuratively, of course) to fill with her enticing dark fiction and her incredible photography, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields has taken over from Madison and carries the torch high. Her selection of photos has been quirky (in a good way), intriguing, and challenging, and the participating writers always take that challenge and make wonderful stories from it. Madison can relax in the knowledge she handed her “baby” off to an equally protective parent. The transition was smooth and seamless.

Today’s picture–mahalo, Doug McIlroy–is certainly quirky, intriguing, and challenging. I’m sure you’ll agree when you see it.

I occasionally make a political statement with my Friday Fictioneers story (and get the comments acknowledging that), but it’s not to persuade anyone to a specific point of view. Rather, I want to make people think about perceptions and whether what they think are universal truths are actually universal or true. This week’s story, “Status Update,” is about a religious extremist and a potential act of terror, so see if your assumptions about that match what you read.

If you don’t see the link on the story title above, scroll to the top of this post, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, and select the story from the drop-down menu.