Continuing the microflash prompts on our local creative writing group’s Facebook page, I found this photo from our time in Washington. It’s not the best picture, taken with my cell phone in the underground beneath the city, but the light and colors sparked my imagination and I knew I had to use it. Microflash pieces are tiny, just 100 words, making them long enough to present the bones of a story but short enough to post…
Well, I totally forgot to post this last month. We skipped May due to our scheduled meeting date falling on Mother’s Day and the library not having an opening on other dates, so we met in June. This should have been posted in July at the latest but… well, we all know how well I remember things. Anyway, the prompt was centered around Midsummer (or the summer solstice). I wanted the day to be important…
In looking for a way to provide content on the local creative writing group’s Facebook page, I toyed with the idea of posting our monthly flash pieces. It would serve a few purposes: highlight great stories, highlight lovely people, and blow away the cobwebs forming in the corners of the page. But 500 words, while not a lot, is a pretty big wall of text for a Facebook post. So, I decided on a test…
For April’s flash prompt, we were given the phrase “a compelling voice.” Now, those who know me probably know how hard it was not to go full-on phangirl and do a Phantom of the Opera fic. But Fieryl, my jag’haar security chief from the upcoming Draxton’s Destiny, roared quite a bit louder. This is a snippet detailing how Ta’Naii Levegaer came to be on Fieryl’s tech team to remove Draxton’s slave bands. Enjoy!
March’s prompt was based around an old saying, “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” The proverb, first recorded in the early 18th century, was used to predict spring weather. If March was stormy and windy, it was a “lion,” and the month would end in a much calmer fashion. The reverse was also believed to be true, a calm first of March meant storms by the end of the month. Since this is…
The prompt for the February flash fiction was, unsurprisingly, related to Valentine’s Day. Instead of choosing the day itself, we decided on Valentine’s Cards. This piece, longer than the requirement of 500 words, was an idea I simply couldn’t compress enough and be happy with it. It’s a world that’s been stewing in my brain, an alternate history ruled from the shadows by a vampire caste called the Night Barons. Not steampunk, just…Regency with a…
Back in November, our local writing group gave us the prompt of “Winter in the South” for our December flash story. I have very firm opinions of my fellow southerners attempting to drive in snow, most of which I probably shouldn’t put down for general consumption, so the prompt proved rather difficult for me. I wrote one story, Winter in Dixie, which I posted in December and decided against bringing to the meeting. It needed…