Friday Fictioneers (March 8, 2013)

Posted on March 7, 2013 by C. Patrick

Seems like just last week it was Friday and the Friday Fictioneers gathered to write 100-word flash fiction based on a photo prompt found over at Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ website. Here’s this week’s pic and my contribution. If you’d like to see the more of this week’s entries, check out this page.

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“When You Rather Wish You Were Dreaming, Instead” (100 words)

A staircase wound sideways around the inside of the mollusk’s shell. Two high up (far back?) windows faced, Harmon supposed, the sun-drenched beach. Gravity was weird inside the shell, but certainly not the strangest thing about his day.

The strangest thing hadn’t even been meeting the mollusk, whose name, he’d been informed, was Erbert.

“Hi, I’m Erbert,” the mollusk said. Then: “Today, we’ll be discussing the importance of saving the world from an infestation of wombats.”

“Um,” Harmon said.

No, the strangest thing was that when he’d gone to bed last night, he’d been in Billings. Nowhere near a beach.

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Friday Fictioneers Flash Fiction (1 March 2013)

Posted on February 28, 2013 by C. Patrick

It’s that time of week. Time for Friday Fictioneers Flash Fiction. This week’s picture was donated by Beth Carter.

Image

Of Cacti and Cars (100 words)

“Quite a car you’ve got there,” the cactus said, sarcasm dripping from its words like sap.

The sun was hot. Hurley wiped sweat from his forehead with a bare forearm. He narrowed his eyes at the cactus. “Don’t talk bad ‘bout my car.” He patted the hood. “Built her from a kit. Got me 68,000 miles. Fifteen times ‘cross the country. Just a little overheated. Be back on the road in no time.”

“Uh huh.”

“You think I’m lyin’?”

The cactus grinned without moving, its upturned arms as good as any curled lip. “Nah. Just wonderin’ what you’re runnin’ from.”

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Flash Fiction: “Long Distance Relationships”

Posted on February 22, 2013 by C. Patrick

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve written a lot of flash fiction lately. I like the form. It makes me have to compress a whole story–characters, background, setting, conflict, and all the other elements of any story–into whatever limitations (usually word count) the parameters of the prompt dictate.

This one was for a LitReactor contest. There was a picture prompt and the rules were thus: it had to be 25 words or less, the title had to be 10 words or less, and the story had to be two sentences–no more, no less.

Here’s the picture prompt I had to work with. At LitReactor it was attributed to yowayowacamera.com (on a side note: the site apparently features this woman levitating a lot. It’s kinda freaky):

Yowa Yowa Camera Woman, Levitating

And now don’t you wish I’d keep my explanations to 25 words or less, too? Heh. Here’s my flash fiction:

“Long-Distance Relationships”

“Peter,” Wendy said–not breathing hard, not even angry–as she bobbled above polished linoleum at a bank of payphones, “I’m 25. This must stop.”

UPDATE: I won! Yay! My prize is a print copy of Fight Song by Joshua Mohr. Thanks, LitReactor!

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