"An Alien Named Tim" Live at Nature

My science fiction short story "An Alien Named Tim" is live now at Nature. This is my second time appearing in Nature. I originally wrote this story for one of Liberty Hall's weekly flash fiction competitions; it's my first sale from the stories I've written there.

If you read "Private Memories" earlier this week and want something a bit lighter, this should fit the bill.

Short Story Publication: "Consequences" at Fiction and Verse

My short-short crime story "Consequences" has been published today by Fiction and Verse.

I've mentioned before that Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine runs a monthly fiction contest for 250-word stories which I've entered quite a few times. It's fun, but they only print one story a month and presumably get dozens of entries. And while I've gotten an honorable mention more than half of the times I've entered, there aren't a ton of markets looking for 250-word crime stories. As a result, "Consequences" is the first of these to see print. I hope that you enjoy reading it if you stop over by their site to check it out.

"Ars Gratia Artis" is Live at Sorcerous Signals

My short story "Ars Gratia Artis" is live now on the Sorcerous Signals website. This is a short fantasy flash fiction blurbed as follows:

"Larry has a dying request of his friend Malcolm. Will Malcolm help him create his final work of art?"

If you get a chance to stop over and read it, I hope that you enjoy the story.

Podcast of "An Unsuitable Job for a Human"

I woke up to a little surprise today. Nature podcasts one of their Futures stories from each month; Geoff Ryan chooses his favorite of the stories published that month and reads it. He did a really nice job with "An Unsuitable Job for a Human" and -- as before -- it was a lot of fun hearing someone else read my story aloud.

It's short -- under 10 minutes -- so if you have time, go ahead and check it out!

Guest Editing the October Kazka Press Flash Contest

There's some exciting news in my writing world. I'm going to be guest-editing the October flash fiction contest run by Kazka Press. (The stories will be published on October 1st with submissions running from September 1-20.)

The theme I've chosen is "Love Beyond Death."  The publisher of Kazka Press asked me to say a few words about what I was looking for and I wrote:

The best thing I can say is: surprise me! There are some obvious directions this theme could take: ghosts, other paranormal beasties, personality-on-a-microchip/uploaded-brain type stories, etc. I’m not saying I won’t take those if they’re great, because we want to provide great stories for the contest’s readers. But if I’ve got the choice between a great ghost story and a great story that took the theme in a direction I couldn’t have anticipated and that made me say ‘Wow!’ I know which one I’ll pick every time.

Interested? Check out the general submission guidelines for Kazka Press and feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

Short Story Sale: "Present Company" to Every Day Fiction

I just received word that my mystery flash fiction "Present Company" will be published by Every Day Fiction. This will be my first story for EDF and I'm very much looking forward to this story being published there.

"Present Company" arose from a stray comment a coworker made during a lunch conversation one day. It began as a slightly-longer story, about 1600 words. Over time I trimmed a bit here and a bit there and the last set of cuts made it just short enough for EDF.

I'll update everyone when it's live and ready to read on their site.

"Sequence" is Live on the Grand Science Fiction site

My story "Sequence" is up today on the Grand Science Fiction site. It's a flash story, exactly 1000 words (per the market's guidelines -- they only run stories of exactly 100 or exactly 1000 words). I wrote this one earlier this year and am pleased that it is available for others to read now.

I hope you enjoy reading it!

"Great-Uncle's Visit" - A One Sentence Story

Twitter is a heck of a lot of fun sometimes. I know a lot of really cool writers there and though I haven't spent as much time keeping up on things the past week or two as I usually do, I somehow managed to not quite entirely miss out on the #1ss hashtag conversation which popped up last week. 1ss stands for "One Sentence Story" and began with Alex Shvartsman finding a sentence unbearably long when he was critiquing a piece by Anatoly Belilovsky. That sentence spawned a conversation which spawned a challenge and -- voila -- the #1ss hashtag! Writers were challenged to create the most interesting story consisting solely of one sentence.

M. Bennardo has kindly put together a list of all the resulting stories which were made publicly accessible for everyone's reading pleasure.

As far as my attempt, it is below.

Originally I had thought about trying to add a massive Degree of Difficulty aspect to mine by having the first word start with "A", the second with "B" and so on with repetition (or reversal if I wanted the real challenge of putting two "Z" words back-to-back) until done. So, that story might have started "After being certain David escaped from Galt House..." But my attempts at that proved too contrived and I abandoned that idea for the one which turned into the following story. According to Google Docs, it's 334 words long. (Good luck diagramming this sentence!)

Without further ado, let's slip back in time a bit and eavesdrop while a boy patiently listens an elderly relative during...

Great-Uncle's Visit

These things which we have discussed happened far in the distant past, back beyond your father’s day and his father’s day and that of his father’s father, back so far that when anyone tells these stories today they always begin the telling with “This legend” or “This myth” or “This fairy tale” but as I have told you such descriptions are themselves the myths, themselves the fairy tale, as all of these happenings were real and all of these things I spoke of are as real as you are -- as real as I am, even -- and should not be consigned to the category of stories with which to amuse; rather, these stories should be ones to catch the breath and prickle the skin and worry the soul for they are the real history of our world and the things which walk among us all and if the power of these creatures pales somewhat in light of modern technology, a position which I hope you will pardon me if I find somewhat lacking since this newfangled television which you are always watching with its Howdy Doody and its Mickey Mouse Club and its Davy Crockett is not as wonderous as a djinn (though the real Crockett was indeed a fearsome man and I know full well that he would understand the import of these histories which I am sharing with you) and neither are the most modern firearms any more deadly than a ravening pack of ghouls or ogres but even were I to concede that these creatures are no longer the most powerful forces on Earth that would not be the same as to say that they were powerless for, indeed, nothing could be further from the truth and I speak not just from a theoretical perspective but from one which is all too personal and so I ask you for the last time, boy, would you please keep that damnable pizza away from me -- the garlic gives me hives!

Dissecting the Short Story: "Memories of My Mother" by Ken Liu

As discussed recently, this is the first post in the reboot of my Dissecting the Short Story series. Remember that I won't be shy about including spoiler material in this analysis, so if you haven't read this story it might be worth your time to read it first before reading the bulk of this post.

Story:
"Memories of My Mother" by Ken Liu
Published in:
March 19th, Daily Science Fiction
Approximate Length:
1000 words
Presentation:
First Person, Chronological, Mixed Past and Present Tense
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

"Call & Response" Flash Fiction Prompt Contest Deadline Extended

With the holiday week, I'm going to extend the deadline for this Iteration of the "Call and Response" Flash Fiction prompt contest to Monday 11/28 at 5 PM EST. So, if you meant to enter and forgot, feel free to jump in. If there are no entrants by the new deadline, I'll cancel this iteration and see if it makes sense to try again, maybe once a month instead of every other week.

Call & Response Flash Fiction Request for Prompts (Iteration 3)

Yesterday I posted the flash fiction which ended Iteration 2 of the "Call & Response" series on my blog, "Abandoned Items."

Every other Friday (when I'm not posting a "Dissecting the Short Story" post) I'll publish a new short story, definitely under 1000 words, often under 500 words. The twist that gives the series its name is that each story will be based on a writing prompt supplied by one of my readers.

Every other Saturday I'll post a new request for prompts. The prompt can be anything at all. It can be a photo, a concept, a few words. Whatever. People will have until Noon Eastern Time on Thursday to submit their prompts. Thursday night/Friday morning I'll announce the winning prompt from among those posted. The following Friday I'll post the story inspired by the prompt.

So, start submitting your prompts right now. They're due by Noon on Thursday November 24th (Thanksgiving for my US readers) and I'll announce the winner that night or Friday the 25th. Finally, I'll publish the resulting story right here on my blog on Friday December 2nd.

As a reminder the person who submitted the prompt which I select will receive a $5 Amazon gift card as a prize for having a great prompt.

The fine print: All rights to the story created based on the prompt will be held by the author of the story. The $5 prize is only available to people with an Amazon account to which I can send the prize electronically. I reserve the right to add more fine print to future versions of this activity if I feel the need to do so. (Though I sorely hope I don't need to.) There are no guarantees that I will continue to run this activity beyond the currently-posted Request for Prompts. (Though I sorely hope that it will be fun for us all and that I will want to do so.)

"Abandoned Items" (Call & Response Flash Fiction #2)

Hello and welcome to the second installment of my "Call and Response" Flash Fiction series where my readers suggest prompts and I write a story based on my favorite prompt. This week, the prompt was a photo by Nellie -- I've cropped the photo to the part of it that grabbed my attention, the image of a rose in the snow.

Photo courtesy of Nellie

And now, the story...

Abandoned Items

She hurls the flower away and it lands in the snow. It looks absurd lying there, bright red against dirty slushy brown.
"He's a jerk," I tell her. Truth be told, some days I think he's pretty cool, but I know it's what she wants to hear. And he certainly has acted like a jerk to her recently.
She responds with a comment which is both vulgar and unlikely, given that she has broken up with him that morning. The rose was his attempt to get back in her good graces. He left it on her doorstep in a little vase. I know because I drove her home, like I've driven her home every night after practice this week. Romeo and Juliet. She plays Juliet, I play the the nurse. Thanks goodness he isn't playing Romeo. Can you imagine it? Awkward!
She takes one last puff from her cigarette and it too gets tossed to the ground. "OK, I've got to get inside. Barcus gave us a crapload of calculus homework for tomorrow. You drive safely. I'll see you at school tomorrow."
We hug briefly. She pulls away and gives a little wave before going up the steps to her porch and into her house.
It's cold and quiet. The suburban side street has only parked cars, no one is around, not even the seemingly-ubiquitous dogwalkers. No one is watching.
I pick the discarded rose up from the ground. I'll take it home with me, put it in some water, set it on my nightstand. It will look beautiful for a few days before it withers. This will suffice.

Dissecting the Short Story: "Call Center Blues" by Carrie Cuinn

Welcome to the new installment of my Dissecting the Short Story series where every other Friday I look at a recently-published short story from a major genre fiction publication. This time, I'm doing something a little different. The story being examined this week is one published by Daily Science Fiction, a pro-rate publication whose stories are all made available to read on-line for free.

Story:
"Call Center Blues" by Carrie Cuinn
Published in:
November 2nd, 2011 Daily Science Fiction
Approximate Length:
900 words
Presentation:
First Person, Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Call & Response Flash Fiction (Iteration 2)

Having published my first "Call & Response" flash fiction ("The Morandini Genie") yesterday, it's now time for the second iteration.

Every other Friday (when I'm not posting a "Dissecting the Short Story" post) I'll publish a new short story, definitely under 1000 words, often under 500 words. Now here's the twist that gives the series its name... Each story will be based on a writing prompt supplied by one of my readers.

Here's how it will work. Every other Saturday I'll post a new request for prompts. The prompt can be anything at all. It can be a photo, a concept, a few words. Whatever. People will have until Noon Eastern Time on Thursday to submit their prompts. Thursday night/Friday morning I'll announce the winning prompt from among those posted. The following Friday I'll post the story inspired by the prompt.

So, start submitting your prompts right now. I'll announce the winning prompt on Thursday November 10th and publish the resulting story on Friday November 18th.

As a reminder the person who submitted the prompt which I select will receive a $5 Amazon gift card as a prize for having a great prompt.

The fine print: All rights to the story created based on the prompt will be held by the author of the story. The $5 prize is only available to people with an Amazon account to which I can send the prize electronically. I reserve the right to add more fine print to future versions of this activity if I feel the need to do so. (Though I sorely hope I don't need to.) There are no guarantees that I will continue to run this activity beyond the currently-posted Request for Prompts. (Though I sorely hope that it will be fun for us all and that I will want to do so.)

"The Morandini Genie" - "Call and Response" Flash Fiction #1

A couple of weeks back I announced a new series on my blog, "Call and Response" Flash Fiction, where my readers can suggest prompts, and I'll pick my favorite and use it as the basis for a flash fiction.

David Powers King was the first winning "prompter" and below is the story I wrote from his prompt:

"A child finds a candlestick in the gutter on her way home from school."

Saturday, we'll start the cycle up again with my second call for prompts. Can I do this during NaNoWriMo and survive. Stay tuned to find out! :)

Without further ado, based on David's prompt...

"The Morandini Genie"

Susan skipped down the road on her way home from school, but only because no one was looking. At twelve, she felt like she was too old to be skipping, even if it still felt fun.
A glint in the gutter caught her eye and she came to a stop. An old-fashioned candlestick was lying at the edge of the road, in the muck left from the prior night’s rain.
She almost passed it by, but something about it held her attention. She knelt down and touched it. Its warmth surprised her. She glanced around. Still no one was looking. She snatched up the candlestick and shoved it into one of the many partitions of her backpack.
The rest of the way home she ran.

#

She let herself into the house and thudded up the stairs to her room. Her backpack landed with its own thump as she shrugged it from her shoulders to the floor.
She pulled out the candlestick. It had intricate swirls and loops all along its base. The stem of the thing had a chain-like pattern, criss-crossing back and forth all around. She set it down on her desk. A bit of mud fell off and landed on one of her school papers. Susan grimaced and went for some paper towels.
She rubbed the candlestick with a damp paper towel, cleaning off the grime. As she did, she noticed it was even warmer than before. Suddenly, she felt a zap like static electricity on a winter day. The candlestick clattered to the desk. Beside it stood a tiny creature.
“Whoa! 50 years in a candlestick can give you such a crick in the neck!” it exclaimed.
Susan frowned at the little man-like thing. A tiny inkling at the back of her mind said that maybe she should be uneasy about talking whatsits suddenly appearing in her bedroom, but this thing was so small she couldn’t take the feeling seriously.
He frowned back. “Hey, c’mon, that gets me a laugh, right? Robin Williams? Aladdin?”
“Ummm... I think my parents watched that once.”
He glowered again at Susan and sighed. “Guess I need to freshen up my jokes... Anyway, that’s not why I’m here, right?”
“Why are you here?” she asked him. “For that matter, who are you?”
He made a show of looking himself up and down. “Duh! I’m a genie.”
“I thought genies came in lamps?”
“Eh. That’s a common misconception. Actually, anything bearing illumination can hold a genie. Lamps, candlesticks, flashlights. You name it.”
“You’re pretty small.”
“Thanks. I’d never noticed.”
She rolled her eyes. Was he really going to get into a battle of sarcasm with a twelve-year-old?
“So, now what?” she asked. “I get three wishes?”
“Actually, just one. Like you said, I’m pretty small.”
“I need to make it a good one, then.”
“Well, yes. But... Heh... Not too good. Remember. Small genie.”
She considered this. What would she want, if she could have anything...
“Can you make me smarter than Regan from my class?”
“No, sorry. I can make you smarter than Jesse from your class, though.”
“I already am smarter than Jesse!”
The genie shrugged. “If you say so.”
“Fine, then, make me a better runner than...”
“Lacey Hatler?”
Susan nodded.
“Nope, sorry. Remember, think small!”
“Well what sort of worthless genie are you?”
He pointed to a poster on her wall. “You like baseball, right?” She nodded. “So you know Derek Jeter?”
“Yeah, but how do you know Derek Jeter?”
“Azmoteth hooked me up with wi-fi on my stick a couple of years back. Hey, just because I’m ancient doesn’t mean I’ve got to be behind the times.” He shook his tiny head. “Anyway, like I was saying. Jetes. You know him, he’s a big star, right?”
“Sure.”
“OK, you know Mickey Morandini?”
She hesitated.
“Didn’t think so. He was a second baseman, played for the Phillies and Cubs, hit about .270 and had 32 homers in his career. So, he’s a baseball player. He’s a pro baseball player. But he’s no Jeter, right?”
“Yeah, but what does...”
“So, look at me like Mickey Morandini. I’m your Morandini genie. Ain’t going to come up with some big splashy wish for you, but I can still help you out. Just in... You know... Little ways.”
Susan plopped on her bed. It figured that she’d have something special happen to her, something cool and unusual, and it would turn out to be totally weak... What could she wish for that this genie could deliver on?
“If I could suggest something..." he said. "How do you feel about ponies?”
Susan didn’t even give that comment a response. Finally, she sat up. “How about if you tell me what you are good at?”
“Ah! Well, let’s see. I’m good at finding lost articles, I’m a whiz at travel -- maybe you and your parents would like to zip down to the Caribbean?”
A vacation with her parents? No thanks. Susan shook her head.
“Hmm... And... I make a mean ice cream sundae!”
She sat and thought. Finding lost things... Travel... An idea came to her, and she presented it to the genie.
He nodded slowly. “It might take some time, though. Are you sure you don’t mind waiting?”
She said it would be fine and made her wish formal. Her genie zipped into the air and flew out her open window.

#

In her college dorm room, Susan awoke one morning to see that the candlestick she had hung onto for nine years was missing. Her heart leapt. No one else had been in her room; her roommate was out of town. It could only mean one thing.
She darted outside, still wearing her pajamas. And there it was, stuck under a bench. A big oil lamp, tarnished and dented. A note stuck under it read simply “From your Morandini Genie.”
She hurried her prize inside, eager to clean it off, and see what wonders its genie could perform for her.

Five Tips For Writing Flash Fiction

I've always been a fan of flash fiction, generally considered to be stories of under 1000 words. When I was a kid they were called "short-short stories" and they were always among my favorite things to read. I had several anthologies of those stories that I dipped into over and over.

Flash fiction has been on my mind a lot recently. I used the format for each of my three WriteCampaign challenge entries (all available on my "Free Stories" page if you want to look them over). I started a blog series where I'll be writing flash fictions from reader prompts. And my recent sale to Kazka Press, "State Secrets", was as part of their flash fiction contest. One thing I've heard from a lot of people is that they are uncomfortable writing at such a short length. So, even though we're in the middle of NaNoWriMo and lots of people are focused on trying to get 50,000 words written on a novel, I thought that some flash fiction tips might be of interest. (Who knows, maybe you'll decide to write a flash fiction if you're feeling like you need a break from your novel!)

1. Keep Focused - With under 1000 words to work with, you aren't going to have room for lots of secondary characters, multiple settings, etc. You're going to want to have a very focused stage on which your story unfolds. If you look back at each of my WriteCampaign entries, you'll see that each of them was a single scene. There were four distinct characters in The Chamber, but one of them had no dialogue and another just a single line. The story I'll be posting Friday based on David Powers King's prompt has three scenes, but basically one there is establishing and one is payoff -- the bulk of the story is the central scene.
2. Make Every Word Count - If you have a specific word target for a contest or publication, this can become really critical. None of my first drafts for the WriteCampaign challenges came in at the limit, so I had to trim each of them. Similarly, "State Secrets" required a bit of paring after my first draft. You can get to the point where you're looking at each word to see if it's truly important. Is there something you're saying with five words that you could say with three? Let's look at "The Chamber" again. In my final draft, the second paragraph starts: "Next was a young girl holding a stuffed animal tightly to her chest." The first draft read: "Next in line was a young girl, a stuffed animal held tightly to her chest." Both say the same thing, but the final version used two fewer words.
3. Start Near the End - This is a tip that I came across from Jim Harrington earlier today. You're not going to have a lot of room in 1000 words for setup. So, in "Vacation in Paradise," I didn't start with Lea and Jacob planning their vacation, or fighting about whether they should be searching for treasure or deck chairs. The story starts with her on the beach, moments before Jacob returns with a surprise for her. A bit of that back story is alluded to during the course of the story, but only so much. "The Chamber", with its twist/surprise ending, gives no back story at all until near the very end and, even then, it's only a hint of it.
4. Know Where You're Going - For me, at least, when I write a flash fiction it's usually something where I'm holding the entire story idea in my head. It's "just" a matter of writing it down. I suppose you could "pants" a flash fiction by starting with an idea and seeing where your mind takes you. But I suspect that it would require a lot more word-trimming than if you had an idea where the story was going before you started. (As an avowed "plotter", I realize that your mileage may seriously vary on this tip!)
5. Be Flexible -  Not every story can be a flash fiction. If you are working on a story and realize that it's just not going to fit into the constraints of the format, be willing to go with that. Of course, if you're looking to enter a contest, you'd be looking at having to write a different story for the contest. So, if you are committed to making a specific story a flash fiction and it's coming in way over your target length, ask yourself what you're willing to remove from the story to get down to the goal. This may be painful. There may be a conversation where the dialogue sparkles and you love the way your main character shows her wit. But if it doesn't advance the story and it eats up 150 words, it may still have to go, or at least be dramatically trimmed.

So there are five tips. If you have thoughts about writing flash fiction, feel free to share them in the comment section below!

---

One final bit of self-promotion. Kazka Press is asking for "votes"/ratings on the stories which won their October contest. (It's a set of blue stars below the story and above the comments.) These ratings will play a role in their decision as to which stories are put in their quarterly eBook anthology. If you read my story "State Secrets" and wouldn't mind taking a few seconds to give it a rating, I'd sure appreciate it! Thank you!

"State Secrets" is Live on Kazka Press Site

Just a quick note to let you know that my short story "State Secrets" is online now at the Kazka Press website. I hope that you enjoy reading it. If you like it and leave a vote for it (using the little stars at the bottom of the story), it may help my story to be selected for their quarterly eBook anthology.

A couple of other small comments... I just noticed that my blog now has 100 followers. Thanks to each and every one of you for stopping in and reading my thoughts on writing.

Also, NaNoWriMo kicked off at Midnight this morning. I got my first 750 or so words done on the project before going to sleep. Only 49,250 to go! If you want to follow my progress on the NaNo site, you can go to my profile page.

Call and Response Flash Fiction: Request for Prompts

If you saw my "Suggestions, Please?" post you know that I'm interested in adding some new features to this blog. There was no great consensus (except around NOT having more frequent links posts) but the most popular item was Flash Fiction. I wanted to try to do something a bit different with this. Here's what I'm proposing:

"Call and Response" Flash Fiction. 

Every other Friday (when I'm not posting a "Dissecting the Short Story" post) I'll publish a new short story, definitely under 1000 words, probably under 500 words. Now here's the twist that gives the series its name... Each story will be based on a writing prompt supplied by one of my readers.

Here's how it will work. Every other Saturday I'll post a new request for prompts. The prompt can be anything at all. It can be a photo, a concept, a few words. Whatever. People will have until Noon Eastern Time on Thursday to submit their prompts. Thursday night/Friday morning I'll announce the winning prompt from among those posted. The following Friday I'll post the story inspired by the prompt.

I know that's a lot of days to keep track of. Here's a concrete example. This is the first request for prompts. I'll pick the winning prompt on Thursday October 28th 27th (edit: Bad at math, sorry...) and publish the resulting story on Friday November 5th.

Oh, yes... I've used the word "winning" a couple of times. That's not just a "hey, feel good about yourself, I picked your prompt" type of winning, either. The person who submitted the prompt which I select will receive a $5 Amazon gift card as a prize for having a great prompt. (See, I'm sneaking in the "contests" that 25% of the people voted for in the poll...)

So, readers, think up some killer prompts and you could win a few dollars and see your prompt turned into a honest-to-gosh flash fiction. The first round is open NOW! I'm looking forward to seeing the creative prompts my readers come up with.

A bit of fine print: All rights to the story created based on the prompt will be held by the author of the story. The $5 prize is only available to people with an Amazon account to which I can send the prize electronically. I reserve the right to add more fine print to future versions of this activity if I feel the need to do so. (Though I sorely hope I don't need to.) There are no guarantees that I will continue to run this activity beyond the currently-posted Request for Prompts. (Though I sorely hope that it will be fun for us all and that I will want to do so.)

"Vacation in Paradise" - 3rd WriteCampaign Challenge

OK, so it's time for the third and final challenge in Rachel Harrie's Platform Building Writers' Campaign. This time the challenge was called "Show Not Tell" and was described as follows:

"Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:

• that it’s morning, 
• that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach
• that the MC (main character) is bored
• that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting
• that something surprising happens.

Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: "synbatec," "wastopaneer," and "tacise."   (NB. these words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them)."

I chose not to try to include the random words since they were optional. (Though, as a lover of Indian food, the idea of a "waste o' paneer" was troubling in the extreme...)

Without further ado...

Vacation in Paradise

Lea groaned. The moist air weighed on every inch of her body. The sun seared her eyeballs as she stared into it, out east over the water. The sand beneath her bare feet gritted. Her teeth gritted. Everything was pain and misery.

She plopped onto the ground. How much longer would she have to wait here for Jacob to return? He said he'd be back before dawn, but that had been a lie. Curse the man anyway, and his infernal plans.

"My Name is Imago Montoya..." (2nd WriteCampaign Challenge)

Rachel Harrie's Writer's Platform-Building Campaign is now onto its second challenge. This one was a doozy! In 200 words or fewer, include four -- shall we say, uncommon? -- words. Oh, and if you can throw in a reference to a mirror all the better.

If you like this, please consider going to the Linky List and voting for me. To my great delight, I am #42 in the list.

Without further ado...

"My Name is Imago Montoya"

The twins shriek through, chasing each other with plastic swords, dollhouse mirrors as shields, misquoting The Princess Bride.

No one’s killed me. I’m sitting right here, trying to write. You couldn’t tell from my progress. A miasma of doubt and frustration fills my brain.

Cindy comes in, fresh from the shower. An oversized Lacuna Coil tee hangs to her knees. Was there really a time we got to go to concerts? Her fingers flutter over my shoulders. “Getting anywhere?”

My sigh answers her. I’m getting nowhere on this sequel to my first novel, Synchronicity Blues.

“Prepare to die!” one girl shouts from another room. Cindy leaves to settle them.

I review my last few paragraphs. My heroine yawns three times in them. Thesaurus time! Gape, gawp, … oscitate? No. Maybe just better to rewrite, so I delete the troublesome text. Keep those eyes off the wordcount!

The girls dart in, Cindy following with an “I tried” shrug.

“Tell us a story, Daddy!”

I spin a tale of heroic princesses and treacherous dragons. Their rapt attention reminds me why I love storytelling.

My excitement must show. Cindy herds them off to bed. “Looks like dad’s ready to get back to work!”