Today is Halloween. Four hundred thousand people will descend on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, beginning at around 5:30 or 6 pm. We live exactly four blocks from where all the merrymaking will take place, and traffic in front of our house promises to slow to a crawl by mid-afternoon. We’ll see all sorts…
Month: October 2011
Great Article Explaining What Flash Is and Where to Submit Your Work
Flash What? A Quick Look at Flash Fiction by Jason Gurley If you’re anything like me — the traditional short story writer — then perhaps you’ve had the same reaction I exhibited when I first heard of something called “flash fiction.” I stopped, stared, then turned to a writer friend of mine and said, “What?” Flash…
Prompt: Sunset Boulevard
He was standing on the corner when she saw him as she was heading back to work. Not a tall man, he had an air of authority about him that suggested that he was comfortable in life, perhaps living out in the suburbs in a gated community where all the houses matched with variation coming…
Prompt: Stock Ticker
“This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.” That’s all Adam Burlingham could say when City of London police, acting on a directive from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, came in and shut down his brokerage firm. “Be careful, you oafs,” he shouted as two men grabbed the antique stock ticker, the one his…
Helpful Article on How to Write Flash – Pieces 300 – 1000 Words
Writing Flash Fiction By G. W. Thomas With the advent of the Internet, editors are looking for shorter works, more easily read on a computer screen. The current term is “flash fiction”, a tale between 300-1000 words long. Longer than micro-fiction (10-300 words) but shorter than traditional short stories (3000-5000 words preferred by most magazines),…
Prompt: A green brocade wingback chair
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Frances said as she sat in the green brocade wingback in her oldest friend’s living room, “but yesterday, while picking up my favorite pair of pumps at the shoe repair shop, I succumbed to the charms of a very attractive man.” Claudia swiveled round on the piano bench…
Lesson from My Dog
Cordelia is my dog. She is a Cardigan Corgie, which means she’s black, white and tan, with a tail that curves like a sideways U above her back. Being a Corgie, her little legs are not long, perhaps four inches if she stretches, and her body is like a wiener dog but heavier, as if…
Prompt: Hot Flash
Why is it I get so hot? Sweat forming on my face and under my arms. The bed covers too oppressive to even touch my skin. And me getting up and adjusting the fan in my direction, hoping that in just a minute or so, I’ll feel the heat abate. At that point, the fan…
Prompt: Whir of the Coffee Grinder
I can’t say how it happened. One day I was willing to stay and the next I wasn’t. No big bells and whistles. Not even the infamous toothpaste cap out-of-place. Just done. All the juice drained from the relationship like a lemon accidentally left in the car for too long in a hot summer. Desiccated…
20 Minutes a Day 