Wednesday 8 October 2014

(vol 1) CHAPTER 35: “This just in!”

Just when you make a conscious decision to utilise more of your time to write, the universe says “I DON’T THINK SO” and slaps overtime in your face. Sure the money’s great but I’m tired, stressed, missing my wife and son, and just want to write.

So, no writing lunch breaks this week and several late finishes mean I haven’t done anywhere near to what I’d hoped. And NaNoWriMo is just over three weeks away.

Still, the weekend was good and, despite forgetting to put up two reviews (incoming this weekend) at least I did well Flash Fiction wise.

First I received a Special Mention for one of my two Friday entries, the dialogue-only NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK.




The tale of a bickering married couple, this one was born from something my wife said with regards to the prompt. I won’t spoil it in case you fancy reading the stories, but I will say that I’m glad she pointed me in a direction far outside the box.

I also received a lot of great comments for this piece as well as my much darker tale WITH THE FISHES. This took the Politician theme and mixed a little Mafia in with it. There was a lot of really good competition this week and I’m chuffed to have got my name up there. Thank you to everyone who left comments. Glad you enjoyed.

Straight off the back of one flash fiction contest I dived straight into Flash Frenzy and produced the comedic APOCALYPSE. This had started out as a tough one due to a photo prompt that challenged more than any other I had tackled to date. But, as with many of my flash fiction ideas, I was about to concede when the idea hit me.

I may not have won but I did learn something valuable while working on this piece; don’t get up at 5am, write something in less than one hour and then post it online before you’ve had the chance to let another, more responsible and awake human being view it.

With panics attacks over spelling errors (the title among them) it was stressful and I ended up having a conversation with myself in the stories comments section long before any other writers were even awake to read it. Fortunately, one fellow author seemed to enjoy my published brain fart as much as the story itself. Hey, if anything I write puts a smile on a person’s face then that’s good enough for me.

But as I said 348 words ago, I just haven’t had time to do much else. Even this post is bare bones and merely an update.

Still, there’s plenty to come over the next week and damn the universe if it thinks it can stand in my way much longer.

So look forward to two more Flash! Friday entries in just two days’ time. Coming off the back of recent twitter conversations I seem to have made a name for myself with double entries in four of the last five weeks and I don’t see it stopping anytime soon.

Then, over the weekend I’ll be posting my reviews for Dean Koontz’s ‘Deeply Odd’ and Adam Christopher’s ‘Brisk Money’. One I loved and one I didn’t but you’ll have to tune in to find out which was which.

I’ll also be diving back into Flash Frenzy with another 360 word piece that I think I’ll take a little more time over and get someone to check first. Yes, that sounds like a much better plan.

But before all of that I will be entering another, brand new flash writing contest tomorrow. Over at David Borrowdale’s Microbookends.com he is starting a new contest where authors are provided with a first and last word and must use a photo prompt to fill in the ninety eight between the two. Looking forward to this.

And that’s about all.

Fingers crossed that normal service will resume next week.

See you in seven.

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