Friday Fictioneers

Friday Fictioneers’ New Era

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This is our first Friday Fictioneers under our new “management,” Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Not only was the prompt up bright and early on Wednesday morning, but Rochelle had posted her own story by Wednesday afternoon. Way to hit the ground running, Rochelle!

Last week, my story had a bit of a political touch, and some people didn’t like that. Well, too bad. If you read any of my longer fiction, you know my political leanings are not hidden. It’s called an allegory of self for writers, and it is what it is. If you don’t like my political leanings, don’t read what I write; it’s that simple. However, if you do read a Friday Fictioneers story, I expect a critique on the writing, not my politics. I’ve read plenty of Friday Fictioneer offerings where I don’t like the genre, or the situation, or the politics, but I comment on the writing.

I do, however, have a political blog separate from this blog, which is, well, my writing blog. If you want to challenge my politics, do so at Politics Wednesday, but a brief warning here. I’m a political scientist and historian and, therefore, an inveterate fact-checker. Be civil, and we’ll have an intelligent discourse. Be a troll, and you’ll get deleted. Again, that simple.

This week’s story, “Shrine,” is an homage to those who serve this country and to those who wait at home. ‘Nuff said.

Until we get the transition all straightened out, to read other Friday Fictioneers, go to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ blog and check them out.

A Bittersweet Friday Fictioneers

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One of the most difficult things in the world is to come up with something unique, and one of the most satisfying things in the world is when that idea grows into something beyond your wildest dreams. In doing so, it can come to consume your life. Add to the fact you have a full-time job that pays the bills, and something has to give.

Friday Fictioneers, founded by Madison Woods, is evolving. Madison has decided to give up the reins to focus more on her own writing. This is something I totally understand. I gave up my dream job and retired to do the same. I should say that Friday Fictioneers won’t be the same without her inspiring photos and her unsurpassed enthusiasm, but in fact it won’t be the same. Change requires adjustment, but it is always good. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, a Friday Fictioneer from the beginning, or close to it, will take the baton and run with it, and she’ll be a winner.

Madison will still participate as a writer, which is good because I look forward to her 100-word stories as much as I’m looking forward to buying the book she is editing, but I still get a sad sense of “The Queen is dead; long live The Queen.” One thing will always be true: There would have been no Friday Fictioneers, no on-line writing community with that name, no challenge to tell a story in 100 words, and a lot fewer writer friends I’ve made without Madison. This is something she can look back on and declare, with pride, “I did that.” And for that, we Friday Fictioneers are all forever grateful.

Probably because it’s the season, today’s story involves some political commentary. If you’re offended by knee-jerk, bleeding-heart liberalism, then you probably shouldn’t read it–just remember, flame me, and you end up as a character in a story, and in that story you’ll meet a nasty end. Just kidding. A little.

The story is “An Inverse Relationship,” and if you’re the first one to guess, and provide the answer in a comment, which classic work of fantasy I derived the title from, I’ll send you a free copy, signed and personalized, of my book Blood Vengeance. 

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 it from the drop-down menu. Support Friday Fictioneers by reading and commenting on others’ stories. You can get to them by clicking on the icon after the end of my story.

Friday Fictioneers and Place

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All the photos we’ve used for these months of Friday Fictioneers have had a sense of place, but on occasion that “place-ness” is not just the fact that a photo has to be a representation of somewhere. It’s an actual place.

Today’s photo for me evoked exotic locales, narrow streets and alleyways of the Old World. If you look close, in the photo you’ll see footprints, and the great perspective the photographer (fellow Friday Fictioneer Jan Morrill) has captured makes you feel as if you can walk into the picture. I don’t know if that was planned or by accident, but it’s brilliant.

And I don’t mean place in the sense of setting. Every story has a setting, and it’s a key element in story structure. In some stories it’s incidental; in others you wouldn’t have the story without that particular setting.

For me, sometimes “the where” the Friday Fictioneer photo shows is central to the story, i.e., it is the literal setting. Sometimes “the where” is simply a representation of what I want the setting to be. I mean, this picture could be a back ally in Podunk, Iowa, for all I know, but I wanted it to be some Old World city on the Mediterranean, some place where adventure abounds. And so it is.

Add in a couple of bad experiences with on-line dating (I think you’ll figure out which site from the title.), and we have a little story I call “DisHarmony.” (Yes, that spelling is what I intended.)

As usual, if you don’t see the link on the title, “DisHarmony” above, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page, and select the story from the drop-down menu. To read other Friday Fictioneers offerings–and I hope you do–click on the icon at the end of my story.

Friday Fictioneers Again!

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Yet another Friday has rolled around, and the photo prompt for this week was unusual in its normalcy. You wouldn’t think a perfectly decorated and charming room would engender anything odd or outre, but, well, that’s the way my brain works.

I see something normal and think about how I can make it abnormal or macabre. Not horror or gore, but I go to that plane of existence that’s just slightly shifted from reality.

Or a picture can bring back a memory–a good one or one you’d just as soon forget. Even the worst memories can be worked through if you put your writer pants on and make, you know, lemonade.

Without sharing too much, today’s story, “Shuttered,” could have been me if I’d have stayed in my first serious relationship, but I walked away from it and him. That saved my life. I know that, but it was still hard to admit failure.

If you find yourself in a situation similar to that story, call your local domestic violence hotline. There is help out there, and you’re not alone. There is no failure in saving your life.

If you don’t see the link on the title above, go to the top of the page and click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, then select “Shuttered” from the drop down list. To read other Friday Fictioneers stories for this week, click on the icon after the end of the story and enjoy!

Seat of the Pants Writing?

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Blame it on my history degree, but when I write fiction I still research to add that desired verisimilitude (one of my favorite words, by the way). Take today’s Friday Fictioneers photo (click on the story link below to see the photo by fellow Fictioneer Sandra Crook), for instance. I wanted some context–where it’s located, what’s its significance, and so on. On closer examination, there is oriental writing, but is it Japanese, Chinese, Korean?

No one except the photographer seemed to know, and she didn’t enlighten us, preferring, perhaps, not to limit our creativity. However, I don’t want to plunk my two leprechauns (Seamus and Declan) down if I can’t establish a good reason for them to be there. Though, I concede that’s an interesting concept, considering the photo’s contents–Seamus, Declan, and the Buddha.

Since this is about creativity after all, I did what every good pilot does when the instruments fail–fly by the seat of his/her pants.

Eastern religion has fascinated me for a while, and I’m but a dabbler. The journey to enlightenment isn’t easy and isn’t supposed to be, but the struggle is always within yourself, much as with Islam. (Jihad, that much-abused word, is the inner struggle to be a better person.) Dukkha has been misinterpreted as suffering, but it is more a state of un-satisfaction that keeps you from enlightenment. Sukha or happiness is, of course, transitory and unattainable, a lesson that’s sometimes difficult to learn.

Which is the point of this week’s story, “Dukkha.”

If you don’t see the link on the title, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select the story from the drop down list. To read more Friday Fictioneers’ offerings, click on the icon at the end of the story, “Dukkha.”

 

Fantasy Friday Fictioneers

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Again, I’m loving how writing a 100-word story based on a photo prompt is stretching me beyond my genre comfort zone. Frankly, writing a story about pixies or faeries? Not my thing.

Then along comes a stunning photo, and, pop, into your head it comes, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever written before. Oh, you touch on fantasy with your two, little leprechauns, but this is the first time you write a serious fantasy piece–and you get to impart a message, too.

Today’s story is called “Homo Avis.” If you don’t see the link on the title, then click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select it from the drop-down menu. To read other Friday Fictioneers’ offerings, click on the icon after the story.

Give Friday Fictioneers a try–as in participating and writing a 100-word story–and stretch your comfort zone.

Spy Flash – Week 23

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Wednesday is the day I get two prompts: the photo for Friday Fictioneers and the roll of the Rory’s Story Cubes, which I’ve been using for the Spy Flash stories. The inspiration for Friday Fictioneers usually comes pretty quickly, and I have it at least drafted by Thursday so I can let it rest for a day then refine it before putting the story on my blog then posting the link on Friday on Madison Woods’ page.

It’s Spy Flash that’s been giving me some trouble lately, and quite often I’ve posted the Spy Flash story for the previous week a few hours before the next week’s prompt shows up. Meh, what’s a week, you say? Skip one and let it go.

Yes, I could do that, but that would defeat the purpose of writing more, so I’ve kept at it, sometimes giving a Spy Flash story two or three false starts before I had something I was pleased with. And, yes, that’s part of the writing process as well.

So, today was a big surprise. The Friday Fictioneers’ story came to be within moments of seeing the picture–not such a surprise–but so did the Spy Flash idea. Maybe the “reboot” I blogged about a couple of weeks ago finally kicked in. It was another “write like a fool” day–two stories and a blog post (for Politics Wednesday, my political blog). Yay, me!

Here’s this week’s roll of the cubes:

And here’s what I saw: l. to r. – keyhole; bee/sting; digging/filling a hole; listening/hearing; globe/world/earth; reading; tent/teepee; counting money; light bulb/idea.

This week’s story is “Footsteps” and harkens back to how Mai Fisher decided to become a spy. True to the profession, she got blackmailed into it.

If you’d like to give the Rory’s Story Cubes challenge a try, write a story of any length based on the objects and actions in the photo above; then, post a link to your story on Jennie Coughlin’s blog.

If you don’t see the link on the title, “Footsteps,” above, then click on the Spy Flash tab at the top of the page and select the story from the drop-down menu.

A Sticky Friday Fictioneers

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This week’s Friday Fictioneers’ photo prompt might give you a little shiver. I know I did, but I have this thing against spiders. (For those of you who may share my arachnophobia, the picture is of an intricate spider web, not the creepy creature itself.) Thanks to Rochelle Wishoff-Fields for such a fear-inducing and inspiring photo.

Of course, I went right to my fear of spiders, which likely found its origin in some 1950’s B-movie about nuclear fallout creating giant insects. I know I never looked at an ant the same way again after seeing Them.

It’s no surprise either that for the second time in a few weeks, I included a Star Trek reference. Star Trek was the first television series where I paid attention to the writers, not just because they were some of the sci-fi genre’s finest, but because the stories were so good. I wanted to grow up and write like that someday.

This week’s story, “Tangled Webs,” is more horror than sci-fi, but at least I don’t have to look at that picture anymore. [Shudders]

If you don’t see the link on the story title above, go to the top of this page and click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, then select “Tangled Webs” from the drop down list. To read other Friday Fictioneers’ offerings on the photo prompt, click on the icon after the story.

Enjoy, and I hope you don’t dream about giant spiders tonight.

The Wee Folk Return to Friday Fictioneers!

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I’m not sure where the beautiful photo for this week’s prompt was taken, but its stark beauty really struck a chord with me. An idea of what to write came to me as soon as I saw it. Regardless of where the photo was taken, it said Ireland to me.

There have been many waves of immigration from Ireland to America, but the one we’re most familiar with was the one created by the mid-nineteenth century potato famine. Most farmers then in Ireland rented plots of land from usually absentee landlords. When the potato crop failed, they couldn’t pay rent. The landlords would then raise the rent in an attempt to ensure their income, and eventually so many people wanted a place to live, the landlord’s men would come and evict a family then move another in immediately. They couldn’t grow anything either, and they would be evicted, and the cycle went on and on.

America was the land of opportunity for those Irish immigrants, but they arrived and saw the “No Irish Need Apply” signs when they searched for work. Regardless of which migration, it was usually spurred by poverty, and too many times they migrated to another form of poverty.

That was true of my grandmother, though her migration wasn’t until the first third of the twentieth century. She was convinced, however, that the wee folk had migrated to “A-mer-i-cay” at some point because she left milk and bread out for them every night.

This week’s story is “Diaspora,” and it features two leprechauns–Seamus and Declan–I’ve written about before. Though this is a little more serious topic than the other stories, Declan still thinks only of himself, and Seamus sees the big picture.

If you don’t see the link on the title, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select “Diaspora” from the drop-down list. To read other stories (or to post one of your own) from Friday Fictioneers, click on the frog-like icon at the bottom of the story.

By the way, the word “diaspora” is of Greek origin and from the nineteenth century as well, and it meant “a dispersion.” The meaning I’m using in the story is “any group migration or flight from a country or region” or “dispersed outside its traditional homeland.”

In the Clouds with Friday Fictioneers

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For the past several weeks, photo prompts for the Friday Fictioneers have come from among the Fictioneers themselves. As beautiful and challenging as Madison Woods’ photos have always been, I must say the other Fictioneers have challenged us as well.

Last week was my photo, and I thank everyone who wrote fascinating, lovely, thrilling, and engaging stories and poems inspired by it. There were lots of wonderful collaborations.

And we have an equally intriguing photo for today–an unusual cloud formation. I’m moved by clouds myself and have taken hundreds of pictures of them over the Blue Ridge Mountains, but today’s photo has a Jupiter-esque quality about it. I even spotted the equivalent of the great red spot in the lower right of the formation.

So, Jupiter. Space. Space travel. Science Fiction. The result is my story, “For the World is Hollow.” The title alone should tell you which old sci-fi show inspired it as well. (Or you can just look at the tags.)

To read other Friday Fictioneers’ stories, click on the frog-like icon after the story, and, as always, if you don’t see the link above, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select the story from the drop-down list.