Friday Fictioneers

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.

Friday Fictioneers and History

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Friday Fictioneers LogoHaving just spent November writing the rough draft of a novel for National Novel Writing Month where research into the recent past (World War II) was key to finishing the draft, I figured I’d just continue the walk down history’s lane. Just back a little further.

I majored in history in college, with a concentration on modern Soviet history–from the Revolution in 1917 to the then present. An area of particular interest for me was the Stalin era (which covered most of that period). His addle-minded purges of the 1930’s were the subjects of several papers.

Stalin ordered the murder of millions of Russians from a large and powerful population of rural peasants to almost his entire Red Army officer corps. Stalin turned this task over to the sadists in the “People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs”–the NKVD, successor to the Cheka, predecessor of the KGB.

Whether it was sending people by the hundreds of thousands to die in Siberian work camps or torturing people in the basement of the Lubyanka, the NKVD did its job for Stalin, purging the fledgling Soviet Union of anti-revolutionary aspects. What the NKVD accomplished was to purge the Bolshevik intelligentsia or the people who knew how to run government, the people who knew how to raise food, and the people who know how to defend the country, and he and the Russian people paid dearly for it. Stalin may have used the “purity” of Communism as the excuse, but the Purges were a way for him to settle old scores. And his reach was long. The NKVD were able to murder Stalin’s rival Leon Trotsky in Mexico.

The NKVD would often combine unique ways to torture and murder so that the victim often ended up killing him- or herself inadvertently. No real blood on their hands. Today’s 100-word story, “The Purge,” is a depiction of a “favorite” NKVD technique. As horrible as the KGB was, it held nothing to the murderous nature of the NKVD. That the NKVD is relegated to the pages of history is a good thing.

If you don’t see the link on the title above, scroll to the top of the page, click on the tab for Friday Fictioneers, and select “The Purge” from the drop-down list.

Bye, Bye NaNo! Hello, Friday Fictioneers!

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Today is the final day of National Novel Writing Month–and now the real work (editing and revising) begins. All over the country as midnight comes and goes in various time zones you’ll hear sighs of relief and cheers of victory as NaNoWriMo-ers validate their word counts.

My NaNo region–Shenandoah Valley and Winchester Wrimos–is having a TGIO (Thanks Goodness It’s Over) dinner in Front Royal, VA, on Saturday, and it will be a great opportunity to meet some of my fellow WriMo’s in, you know, person. We can celebrate and commiserate and compare notes. I’m looking forward to it.

Next month for me brings the publication of my collection of flash fiction, Spy Flash, and there’ll be plenty of details here on the blog on when it becomes available as both an eBook and a paperback on Amazon.com. I will also have short stories appearing in two anthologies: The Blue Ridge Anthology 2013 and “100×100,” an anthology of 100-word stories on a single photo prompt, produced by the original founder of Friday Fictioneers, Madison Woods. Again, I’ll post details here on the availability of both anthologies. And just this week, I submitted a manuscript of flash fiction for Rose Metal Press’ fiction chapbook contest. All in all an exciting end to a Year of Writing Constantly.

Today’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt is in line with the holiday season, but I went to the dark side. Again. Face it, there’s no escaping the fact that you can show me something absolutely innocent, and I’ll find something sinister. I no longer fight it but embrace it. It’s for the best. (Bwaa-hahahaha!)

My story this week is aptly entitled “‘Tis the Season,” and it may put you off your holiday shopping. (Heh, heh, heh!) If you don’t see the link on the story title, then scroll to the top of the page, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, and select the story from the drop down menu.

A Post-Thanksgiving Friday Fictioneers

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Is it me, or does Thanksgiving seem early this year? Even so, I’m grateful for many things–family, friends, writing groups (yay, SWAG!), writing, and Friday Fictioneers. Aww, you guys are the best writer buddies a fellow writer can have. Looking forward to another year of Friday Fictioneering!

I’m particularly grateful for having some ability to put words together to tell a story. If I weren’t able to do that, I can’t imagine the toxicity that would fester in my brain. So, when I saw today’s photo prompt, I rubbed my hands together in glee as I immediately come up with today’s story, “Bête Noire.”

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

NaNoWriMo Update

The final update for this year’s NaNoWriMo! I finished my draft, of 65,000 words, yesterday evening. Now, it’ll take a nap for a few months, before the hard work begins–revising and editing and editing and revising. I like the concept of the novel, and I like the characters I created, and I look forward to improving both. Thanks, everyone, for all the words of support. See ya next year!

Getting a Friday Fictioneers Charge!

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The title of the post will become clear when you see Sean Fallon’s great photo prompt. And the similarity of Sean’s name to a particular name from a rather famous Fenian anthem meant that it was time for those wee folk, Seamus and Declan, to return.

You’ll recall, we last left them at an abandoned croft, where they decided to immigrate to America along with millions of other Irish. Of course, being as Seamus and Declan are magical creatures, time mean nothing to them, and we find them in present day in a story entitled, “The Rising of the Moon.”

If you don’t see the link on the title above, scroll to the top of this post and click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, then select the story from the drop-down menu. To read more Friday Fictioneers stories, click on the icon at the end of “The Rising of the Moon.”

NaNoWriMo Update

Yesterday, I barely made it over the 40,000-word mark, and the story itself is about two-thirds done. I’m glad to have this breathing room, so I can concentrate on wrapping it up just the way I want. Thanks for all the comments and words of encouragement.

Friday Fictioneers and NaNoWrimo!

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You know, if I planned better, my 100-word stories for the month of November would go toward the NaNoWriMo word count. But, alas, no. Friday Fictioneers was a nice break from grinding out nearly 1,700 words.

And even though Hallowe’en was two days ago, this week’s Friday Fictioneers offering, “A Ghost’s Tale,” is a bit of an homage to that spooky time of year. If you don’t see the link on the story title, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select “A Ghost’s Tale” from the drop-down menu. To read other Friday Fictioneers stories, click on the icon at the bottom of the story page.