Tag: short fiction

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Rough Writers Anthology, 2021

Well, you know how I was talking about expressing gratitude for 2021 even though it was a challenging year? One of the challenging things about it for me was producing the Rough Writers Anthology, 2021.

Since the 2019 Anthology was a surprise and the 2020 Anthology was working out the kinks, I kind-of expected that 2021 would be the year that we had everything dialed in. But instead, it felt like we had to drag this project over the finish line kicking and screaming. I’m still a bit surprise that we managed to make it happen.

This year, rather than use an image as the prompt, a writing prompt was selected by members through a blind draw. The prompt was, “write a story in which the main character has a secret.” The subtitle for the book became, “Don’t Tell.”

When I started working on my story (around this time last year) I had been re-reading Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés and was inspired to go for my own riff on “The Red Shoes” fable.

I find the idea of the wild woman archetype and the way that Dr. Estés uses fairytales and fables to illustrate the tension between women’s instinctual knowledge and the way that knowledge is devalued and repressed in our rational, patriarchal society very compelling.

I wanted to tell a story about a woman who was tamed, but who yearned to reclaim her true, wild nature. The conflict arises in that she is so disconnected from her true self that she doesn’t understand that’s what is happening.

The irony is, that over the course of working on the story, some of the elements in it came up in real life. So let me take this opportunity to say that:

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Anyway, I finally got my author copies, so it’s time for a give-away!

To enter, you must be a subscriber to this blog and comment below by 5:00pm PST on Friday, January 21. I have a limited number of copies, so depending on the number of comments, I may have to figure out some sort of raffle. I will respond to your comment if you are a winner so check back on Monday, January 24 for instructions on how to claim your copy.

You can find all the Rough Writers Anthologies on Amazon.

A complete set of editorial proofs – don’t know where all the final books have gone.

If you use Goodreads, please add the Rough Writers Anthology, 2021 to your “to read” cue.

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Anyone Having Chips for Thanksgiving?

It’s a special Monday installment of Flash Fiction Friday.

I wrote this little story for my writing group about a fraught Thanksgiving dinner.

When I presented it, I got a really great reaction, so I decided to share it with you here.

Sam and Chip

When Mary called Sam in early October to invite him to Thanksgiving dinner, she made sure to ask if he would like to bring any friends with him. She didn’t want a repeat of last year’s blow up about not being properly invited and everyone assuming that he would be alone.

She was titillated when he responded, “It’ll just be me and my Chip,” and couldn’t wait to tell Frank.

Frank warned her that Sam might not mean what she was thinking and that she might want to keep it to herself anyway because no matter what Sam meant by “his Chip,” he would probably be bent out of shape with Mary for sharing something that he thought of as his news.

Mary hated when Frank was right, but agreed that caution was the better part of valor, especially when it came to Sam. So, when the rest of the family asked if Sam was coming to Thanksgiving, Mary would simply answer, “Yes.”

Sam had been nurturing the chip on his shoulder since last Thanksgiving. When he arrived at Mary’s he had to duck and turn sideways slightly so that his chip could fit through the door.

His eight-year-old niece, Patty, came running up to hug him and a piece fell off. He quickly reached down to gather up the crumbly bits and carefully smoothed them back into place on his chip.

Sam strode around the living room with his chip, waiting for someone to make a sassy comment. At one point he almost clocked Uncle Marty with it, but somehow the old guy ducked at the exact right moment.

When they sat down for dinner, Sam carefully and ceremoniously removed the chip from his shoulder and set it in the middle of the table. With a smug grin he looked around. He waited. No one said anything.

Then Mary set the turkey down right on top of it and it shattered. Chips of Sam’s chip went everywhere. It was the moment that he had been waiting for.

May your Thanksgiving be full of love and friendship and community. I hope that however you celebrate, no one is serving up their chips!

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Flash Fiction Friday – Let Sleeping Cats Lie

It seemed like a good time for another installment of Flash Fiction Friday.

This is the prompt that my story is based on:

Write the beginning of a story that takes place in the protagonist’s home. Use at least 3 senses to describe your scene or set an emotion. Please write 350 words max.

I was feeling onery the day I wrote this and wanted to write something that would create an unpleasant or at least uncomfortable impression.

Let me know what you think!

Let Sleeping Cats Lie

With a sigh, she turned the key and pushed. The door opened three inches, then stopped. Crap, those damn cats must have knocked something over, she thought to herself.

Taking a deep breath and bracing her shoulder against the door, she shoved. One, two, three. It budged just a bit more. At least there was now enough of an opening that she could squeeze herself inside.

Gripping the door frame with one hand and the doorknob with the other, she stepped up onto a pile of junk mail, books, and empty takeout containers. As she began to hoist herself upwards, a black flash shot past her and she fell.

“Darnit Jasper! You had better get back here!”

She named all of her black cats Jasper, it was just easier that way.

Refocusing on the task in front of her, she pushed her substantial girth up onto the mound that was blocking the door, teetering cautiously atop it.

The reek of ammonia sucker punched her. She attempted to blink the sting away. This was another reason why she didn’t like to leave her house, any length of time in fresh air intensified the cat urine stench when she returned.

She told herself that her accumulation of things was actually a budget-friendly, cat-centric decorating technique – using found objects to craft a multi-level, feline wonderland. But the boxes she collected for the cardboard cat fort she once intended to build had become a haphazard catchall.   

Twisting, she pushed the door shut before prying eyes caught a glimpse inside. Darkness engulfed her. Last summer she had covered the windows with aluminum foil to try to keep the house cooler. It had been sort of cozy until her electricity was shut off, now it was like living in a cave. This wasn’t a problem for the cats, they could see in the dark. She told herself that the darkness was just another way that she was providing for her feline companions.

The avalanche had thrown off her established route to the sofa. She shuffled ahead slowly. After bumping into a familiar pattern of knee and waist high piles, she arrived at her destination. Her hands fumbled for the one, clear spot where she could sit. It was covered with sleeping cats.

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Flash Fiction Friday, 2021 Edition

Welcome to the first Flash Fiction Friday of 2021! The prompt for this exercise was:

Please use a plot twist, reversal, or danger to tell a great story about the picture below.

You have 350 words to slay me.

The photo was a nighttime sidewalk scene. There was a slightly shabby storefront lit up with four different signs proclaiming its name (which is not the name in the story), and I just knew what the twist had to be.

I got a kick out of writing this and since there were a few giggles when I shared it with my writing group, I decided to post it here. I hope you will get a kick out of it as well.

KinKiller – Fun Gifts, Accessories, Vintage Clothing

I opened this shop seven years ago. I have been selling vintage clothes online since the dawn of E-Bay, but the online vintage marketplace has become really crowded. Some people thought that going brick-and-mortar in the digital era was crazy, but for me, it was the logical next step to protect my market share and continue to build my brand.

Keeping my one-of-a-kind, vintage inventory up-to-date online was getting exhausting, so I began stocking random tchotchkes so that I could keep the store looking robust. You know, fun gifts – incense, laptop sleeves, naughty garden gnomes, magic 8-balls. And accessories – floppy hats, beaded bracelets, and anything with fringe. The kind of junk that just screams, “BUY ME!” – especially when you’re trolling the internet drunk (or zonked out on Ambien). I know because most of my sales happen between 10:30pm and 3:30am.

Finding the right location was a big challenge. I couldn’t put my store anywhere that had requirements about business hours. Afterall, I needed my mornings free for thrifting. And my target customer is a bit tipsy. I needed to be somewhere where I could accommodate the same sorts of shoppers who frequented my online store. I needed to be next to some bars. Somewhere where I could open at 6pm and stay open late.

I wasn’t worried about having to deal with what the local PD termed, “unsavory characters” when they came by to check-up on me. After the cops realized that KinKiller wasn’t a front for some drug dealer or a pimp, they left me alone. What they didn’t realize (though the riffraff did) is that KinKiller’s off-the-books business is fairly literal.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. I know that I look like some bohemian hipster junk merchant. I mean, that IS what Instagram is for after-all. But there sure are a lot of Millennials out there who are sick of waiting for their folks to kick it. They are perfectly happy living with their parents, they just want to be able to spend mom and dad’s money without having to talk to them about it. They want their inheritance. Now.

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Flash Fiction Friday – Dangerous Ideas

Recently, we had a writing exercise about danger. It gave me all sorts of dangerous ideas. Here was the prompt:

Danger is an important ingredient when we write our stories. We are hardwired to anticipate it because it is of primal concern to our lives.

  • Natural Danger – Floods, hurricanes, a tree falls on your house.
  • Physical Danger – Threat of harm or death, like you work in a dynamite factory.
  • Emotional or psychological – Like a mind game, abuse, loss of a child or a love.

GIVE me 400 words MAX of a story with DANGER in it. Make me feel it!

Remember that scene in Men In Black where Will Smith shoots the cartoon little girl instead of all the scary-looking monsters? One of the reasons she was dangerous was all those books she was carrying. I just love that scene. What if that cute little girl wasn’t in a rough-looking neighborhood in the middle of the night?  Could a pigtail wearing, book-reading girl be dangerous in any-old context? Afterall, there’s a reason that women weren’t educated for so much of history. What is more dangerous than a woman with her own ideas?

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Dangerous Ideas

I grew up in an idyllic suburban neighborhood. We had a white picket fence and a two-car garage. Dad wore a suit and drove to his office job every day. Mom was the queen of the neighborhood homemakers. She was as impeccable as June Cleaver and would send my sister Katie and me off to school every day with a kiss on the forehead and a reminder to “be good girls.”

As Katie and I walked together to school every morning, we talked about the challenges that we encountered in trying to live up to our mom’s expectations. Because what she meant when she said that was she wanted us to be quite and polite, to always do our very best, but to never, ever accomplish enough to stand out.

When I was in fifth grade and Katie was in third, she started to rebel. I kept finding her in the library, stacks of books on the table in front of her. Sure, she could check them out, but then our mom might realize what was going on. Katie was getting ideas.

The next year Katie decided to enter the spelling bee. I tried to talk her out of it, but she had gotten ideas from reading all of those books and she knew that she could out-spell anyone in the school. I have to admit, it was thrilling to watch. Finally, it was down to just her and Billy Jarvis.

Katie’s word was antediluvian. Really? But Katie didn’t hesitate, she didn’t ask for a definition or anything.  Then, it was Billy’s turn.  His word was libraries. And he got it wrong! In front of everyone! My sister was the Warren G. Harding Elementary School Spelling Bee champion!

Mom was waiting for us when we got home.

“I got a call from the school today.”

Katie and I froze.

“It seems as if Katie darling, you won the spelling bee. And now you are to go to the district competition.”

“Oh mother, you should have seen it! They gave me antediluvian and they gave Billy Jarvis libraries and he tried to spell it with ‘yz’!”

“Katherina Minola. I don’t know where you got the idea that you should go win a spelling bee. You don’t find your sister Bianca embarrassing boys in front of the whole school do you? That kind of behavior is dangerous!”