Microfiction Madness

Twitter is a strange thing. I joined years ago, barely used it, abandoned it after not really understanding how it worked. And then, just as I was getting ready to share my first book with the world, I rejoined, but this time as a writer, trying to connect with other writers and readers.

What a difference. I feel like I've discovered a whole new world where really cool, witty, talented people hang out and I get a chance to meet them and shoot the shit from time to time. Amy Good is the mastermind behind Friday Phrases (#FP) and she very graciously (as she is in all things) introduced me to the concept, as well as a whole community of writers and lovers of fiction. 

Now Friday is more than just the end of the week and the promise of rest (ha! when does that actually happen?). NOW Friday is about writing and reading 140 character stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes disturbing, but always entertaining. With a nod to Roger Jackson, I've collected some of my own #FP for your perusal. With no particular theme or order, enjoy! 

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"How do I know you're telling the truth?" I asked.

"You don't, and you never will," he said. "That's the risk we take in love. Be brave."

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"Look on the bright side," they said. As if there were only two sides. As if it were easy as flipping a coin. Couldn't they see the grey?

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"This is the last time," she said. She remembered how many last times had brought her here. "Or maybe it's the first without apology."

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Her pride was such a fragile thing. Stroke it gently and she bloomed, rub against it and she crumpled to dust and was blown away.

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"Why can’t I use three exclamations?" she asked. "Because the only people who are that excited about life haven’t lived yet," I replied. 

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You wanted answers, I wanted to feel something other than self-loathing. It wasn’t the worst way to start a murder investigation.

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Want to know more about microfiction? Check out the links here, here and here.

99 Word Biographies

Thanks to Sarah Brentyn for giving me the heads up about the 99 word biographies prompt last week at Carrot Ranch Communications. I've been playing around with flash fiction for the last couple of months and having a blast. But this week's challenge was tough. Maybe it's because I already know my characters from Unbound so well that I find it hard to narrow it down to 99 words. Or maybe it's because I was daunted by the many amazing entries for this prompt submitted by other writers. Either way, here are my entries. 

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Mara was born in squalor. Traded for 50 bucks and a case of whiskey, she spent her childhood being used in ways best forgotten. A girl of shadows and whispers, no one knew of the strange things that happened on nights with a full moon. Rescued and recovered, Mara holds hope and fear with the same disdain. She loves fiercely, is loyal to a fault, and when no one is looking, smiles at babies and sunsets. She is wise woman, crone, rebel, romantic. She can flay with a look and strike like serpent. She will not suffer fools gladly.

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Stuart is all elbows and knees. Equal parts rogue and romantic, he has a way of making people comfortable with his discomfort. His laugh is hard to resist and it’s easy to forget the sadness he’s seen. Few knew of the men who died in his arms as he’d tried to carry them from the battlefield. Fewer still knew that he’d signed up for the war as penance for living a life that would never end. He loves beer and a good joke and in the end, wants nothing more than to be a decent man, worthy of love.

All Good Things.

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”  ― Gilda Radner

Last week I stumbled across a teaser for a Friends reunion show called "The One After the 10 Year Break". It took me about 30 seconds to figure out it was a hoax that had been kicking around the internet for awhile, enraging fans of the show who'd like to see the cast get back together again. And as a Friends fan, I agreed. On the heels of the spectacular Veronica Mars movie, I could totally be convinced that a 10 year Friends reunion might be fun.  But it has me thinking about endings. And how they seem harder to come by than ever before. And how I seem to be struggling, more than ever, to let things go when they end. 

But maybe it's not just me. Maybe we're all struggling with not knowing what happens next. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook allow us to keep up with our ex's latest escapades, no matter how painful or unhealthy it might be. Authors write mullti-book series that go on and on forever, seemingly unable to just End. The. Damn. Story. And even when the story does end, they sometimes write it all over again from another character's perspective. Thanks to Netflix, television shows can be watched and re-watched. And the ones that are cancelled live a whole new life in fan fiction. Can it ever just be over? 

I worry that we're losing our ability to live with the uncertainty of not knowing what happens next. That with the ever-present availability of information and our ability to  communicate effortlessly with each other, we've lost the bittersweet experience of knowing something is really, truly over. Can we be satisfied with not knowing? I'd like to try. Because in retrospect, I think the best moments in my life are the ones that can't be recreated over and over again. And I think some part of me likes the pain of wanting something that I can't have. And wondering about the what-ifs and the what-might-have-beens. Maybe all good things really must come to an end, or else they are no longer good. 

Flash Fiction Fun: It's Just the Wind

I pressed my forehead to the window, the cold glass soothing against my flushed skin. How long had I stared down at the sidewalk, waiting for something – for someone – to be the change I couldn’t initiate? How long had I been sitting here, wanting and needing and not acting?

I felt him standing behind me. His silence as loud as the words he wouldn’t say. I didn’t turn, but flinched as the window rattled in the frame.

“It’s just the wind,” he said, and I nodded, closing my eyes, hope burning as hot as the tears on my face.

*This is my first attempt at the flash fiction challenge over at Carrot Ranch Communications. If you're interested in finding out more, see here: http://carrotranch.com/2014/03/26/march-26-flash-fiction-challenge/

Sound and Fury

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
~ Albert Camus 

I've been looking for meaning lately, noticing myself finding patterns in dates and names and symbols. Trying to connect what is random and unfair and uncertain with what is tangible. 

So I can predict. 

So I can prepare. 

Even while I make these connections, the wise part of me knows that this is just an exercise in control. That looking for meaning is what we do when we feel unsure or overwhelmed by the random events in the universe. 

But I don't stop. I keep looking and wondering and trying to make life seem more orderly. 

And then it hits me. 

This is why I write stories. 

So in some small corner of the universe, things can make sense. 

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.
~ CS Lewis 

Trust

Wisdom is letting go of something every day ~ Zen saying

I haven't always trusted myself. From adolescence until young adulthood I questioned myself, my motivation, my competence, my determination. I use to devote myself to rigid schedules, fearful that if I didn't force myself to meet my goals, I'd wander aimlessly and achieve little. As if sloth sat waiting to pounce at the first sign of weakness. And maybe there was some truth there, but it also meant that I spent too much of my time being self-critical and worrying about failure.

It's not like I woke up one morning with an abundance of faith in my ability to move through my life successfully. Instead, after several painful life experiences, I've come to understand that there is a time for everything. That I can learn to trust myself to work hard in pursuit of the greater good, suffer hardship for future reward, but also move away from things that no longer serve my purpose. I've learned that letting go of something right now doesn't mean letting go of it forever. That rest isn't the same as laziness, that productivity isn't the same as satisfaction.

This means that my writing has an ebb and flow to it that doesn't always suit my timelines. That there are periods of time when I feel like I have more and less space to live in the fictional worlds I have created. I use to feel guilty about this, used to question my commitment to being a writer. Now I see it as something more intrinsic to living a satisfying life. Deadlines aside, I'm learning to be more flexible about my approach to meeting goals and I'm learning to trust that the story will come, not only when I make space for it, but when I have space for it.

It means that I may not be the most prolific writer, at least not when I have so many other commitments in my my life. It means that the arbitrary goals I set for myself (20K this month!) may or may not be met. It means that my best laid plans will sometimes go astray. But I hope it also means that I'll enjoy a long career as a writer who has merged a passion for writing with manifesto of self-compassion. 

"When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'” - Stephen King

Excerpt: Unbound (All Good Things #1)

Pulling oxygen into my lungs I felt a burst of adrenaline, my muscles humming with energy that felt powerful, however short lived. With a gasp of triumph, I leaped over the steps of the side walk that led to the front door of our building and jogged around the side, finally leaning against the large maple tree that I could see from my bedroom, chest heaving.

My blood rushed through my veins, and I walked in slow circles, feeling the sweat trickle down my neck and under my collar. Hanging on to the tree, I pulled my heel back to stretch and then stopped, trying to listen over the thrumming woosh of my heart. The lawn disappeared into the shadow of the other tall trees that bordered the building. Hearing a twig snap, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention like soldiers. I peered into the darkness, trying to distinguish what was shadow and what might be something else. Or someone else. The silence stretched until a cat yowled off in the distance and I could hear a car alarm a few blocks over. My lungs hurt and I realized I was holding my breath.

“Are you there?” I whispered. The night gave no reply. A gust of wind blew through my damp t-shirt and I felt a shiver run down my spine. My muscles already beginning to stiffen up, I took a step towards the darkness and stopped, feeling scared and foolish all at once.

Chilled, I moved backwards into the pool of light near the entrance and turned into the building, trying not to look back over my shoulder. Sprinting up the stairwell, thankful again we only lived on the fourth floor, I hurried down the hallway, and then stopped, one hand on the wall for support. The front door was slightly open and blackness stained the gap like spilled ink. Shit. Hadn’t I locked it when I left? Adrenaline rushed through my veins again, a familiar friend. Moving slowly towards the threshold, the door creaked slightly as it swung open into our dark two bedroom apartment.

“Mom?” I took a hesitant step inside, feeling my legs shake as I noticed her shoes were there.

“Mom?” Moving towards the kitchen I called again, my voice rising with each repetition. My throat felt tight. Images of my mother murdered in the bedroom flashed through my mind, her room ransacked, her body broken. As quietly as I could, I eased the kitchen drawer open, grabbed a steak knife and turned to move into the darkened hallway.

“Rachel? What the hell are you doing?” My mother stood in the doorway, staring at me.

“Mom!” My heart slammed into my ribcage as fear and relief mingled with anger. “Jesus! You didn’t shut the door behind you again.”

“Oh.” She screwed up her face. “Sorry.”

 My hands shaking, I went to put the knife away. “There have been two break-ins this week Mom, not that far from here. You have to be more careful.”

She frowned. “You’re being paranoid.”

I inhaled deeply and turned my back to her as I flipped on the light in the kitchen and opened the fridge. A ketchup and a mustard bottle sat forlornly on the middle shelf, huddling together for comfort in the empty fridge.

“What’s for dinner?”

She shrugged. “We could order in, I guess,” she said looking over her shoulder towards her now open bedroom door as if she were being pulled towards it. I could hear the television.

I leaned against the counter, trying to not let my irritation with her show. “What should we order? You need to eat something healthy, Mom.”  

She pulled her purse out from under the table, took her credit card out and handed it to me. “You go ahead and order something for yourself. I’m not hungry right now.”

Wrapping her hair up on top of her head with an elastic, she walked back towards her bedroom and shut the door.

I watched her go and with a sigh, grabbed a spoon and the peanut butter jar from the cupboard and stalked off to my bedroom. Shutting my own bedroom door, I slid down with back against it, wondering how one day could have gone so horribly wrong. And how I could feel so lonely, even with someone in the next room.

“Enough,” I said. “I give up.” I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. Putting the peanut butter aside, I grabbed my phone and dialled the number I now knew by heart.

I listened to the beep and the silence after it, forcing myself to speak like other people might force themselves to jump off the high dive. “Um, hi. My name is Rachel. I’d like to make an appointment.” I hung up quickly after leaving my number, afraid that I would somehow take it back.