Flash Fiction Chronicles

And no, I’m not talking about gossip.

Well, maybe I am if it’s a character in a story spreading gossip and thus dialogue is required.

One of the things I like about flash fiction is that dialogue has to be short and sweet. No room for pointless chatter. None. But even when you stick to only the vital dialogue that moves the story along while also giving the reader some idea of the character’s personality, you can still end up over that 1000 word limit.

So how can you keep the important dialogue in when you’re forced to cut words?

Simple.

Remove as many speaker attributions as you can. Those annoying “he said, she said” things get way overwitten. And besides, unless your character talks like a computer drone, most readers can figure out who is saying what by the dialogue alone–especially when you mix a little action in with the dialogue.

I’ll use an excerpt from my current novel-in-progress as a brief example. These three paragraphs occur immediately after Yavar and Shanak have a philosophical “debate” over the nature of revenge. Naturally, Yavar ends the debate in the manner she’s well known for:

“Enough!” Yavar reached for Shanak’s throat only to grasp air.

The god appeared behind her. Both his hands held her head. A burning energy poured out of Yavar and into him as she gasped. Her legs weakened then buckled under her. As she collapsed to the snowy ground, Shanak said, “If you insist on this road, then so be it. But you will not travel it as a god, but as a mortal. The divinity within you is now no more.” He called his staff back to his hand. “But as long as you wield Onarus, you remain a threat to us all. Unfortunately, you and the sword are bonded together.” He raised his staff for a strike. “Do not be troubled, mortal. You will soon meet your brother again.”

Yavar sneered. “That’s what you think.” She drew Onarus, spun, and ran Shanak through. The god’s eyes widened as a grunt escaped his throat. Energy poured back into Yavar, stronger and more potent than what she had stolen from Calahan. “Didn’t see that road, now did you?” 

Note that quite a bit of action and dialogue both occur in just three paragraphs with a speaker attribution appearing only once. You can tell which dialogue is Shanak’s both by it all being in the same paragraph and simply by the preachy way he talks. Yavar’s dialogue is in the first and third paragraph, but even if it wasn’t, readers would be able to tell it was her simply by it being short and sweet and having the sharp vicious wit Yavar fans know and love. The main reason I have it broken into three paragraphs is for clarity’s sake. I could have broken it into further paragraphs, but doing so would cost the sense of immediacy I was looking for.

It is also possible that with a minor tweak, even the one “Shanak said” can get removed, but I’ll worry about that when I get to the novel’s editing phase.

So play with dialogue a little, with the focus on ways to use it without speaker attributions. And while you’re at it, have a little fun experimenting in ways to mix it around with action, too. Once you get it handled, it can be a lot of fun to play with.

Scott M. Sandridge learned how to write through hard work, trial-and-error, and the occasional writers’ workshops. His fiction has appeared in Mindflights, Ray Gun Revival, Silver Blade,  Distant Passages, Volume I, The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008, and Chimeraworld #6: New World Disorder.  His story, “Sleep Paralysis,” was a top ten finisher in the 2008 Preditors & Editors Readers Poll for the category of Short Story – Horror. He also writes reviews for Withersin, and is the Managing Editor of Fear and Trembling. More information can be found at http://smsand.wordpress.com.

I’m a relative newcomer to the writing scene, and it was my discovery of the online flash-fiction world that really prodded me into action.  I found one litmag, and then another, and so on until it all spiralled out of control and I was spending countless hours reading these hundreds of short-short stories, trying to figure out how the writers had managed to do so much in such a tiny space.  It was both gob-smacking and inspiring. 

The concision and the immediacy of flash fiction seemed to me to be something attainable and manageable, unlike the weave and sprawl of a novel, and so I decided to try my hand at it.  I’ve had a certain amount of success,  but, of course,  it’s a hell of a lot trickier than it looks, which only adds to my admiration for the writers who get it right.  Although I’ve a long way to go, the learning curve has been satisfyingly and exhaustingly steep, and each rejection slip teaches me something.

So that’s the short of it, but I wasn’t happy to leave it there: this September I enrolled upon an MA in creative writing, with the intention of hammering out a draft of a novel, or as much of one as I can manage in a year.  From the micro to the macro, then, in one demented leap. 

Novels were my first love as a reader, and it’s an enduring passion; so as much as I enjoy reading and writing flashes, I also want to make one of those bigger, fatter, monolithic chunks of prose, and the MA seemed like a good place to start.

The initial feedback on my workshopped pieces were much as you’d expect; coming from the get-to-the-point precision of flash fiction, all I was getting on my sample chapters was ‘Flesh it out!  Give me exposition!  Show us more setting!’  Next time round this turned to ‘You’re just rambling!  What’s the point of this?  Get to the action!’ 

So I’ve had to sit down and examine my approach, and the trick, as far as I can see right now (one semester in, three months wiser!) is to take everything you’ve learned from writing flashes, and apply it at a deeper level.  That sounds a little crazy, and it’s possible I’ve overdosed on mulled wine (it is the festive season, after all), but in flash fiction – as we know – every word has to work extremely hard and pack in a world’s worth of meaning, and so it seems more permissible and tempting, somehow, in a longer piece, to slack off when you know you’ve got the wiggle-room to elaborate and wander around the topic.  But of course that’s not so – the reader is a critical beast, and you’ve got to maintain their interest over a much greater span than, say, five hundred words.

What I think is needed, then, is to write everything in more close detail than you might in a flash – describe the room, detail the childhood, fill in the backstory, or whatever – but do this with every bit of precision and concision that you can pull from your flash fiction bag of tricks.  Flesh it out, give the reader the wealth of detail that makes a novel such a sumptuous treat, but always treat every single paragraph, every line of dialogue, as though it has to be accountable for itself, as though it has to be read aloud and examined as an entity onto itself.  It may not stand alone, plot-wise, but its language and structure and resonance should be as strong as any five hundred or two hundred word flash fiction piece that you’d ever consider subbing to a competition or a journal.

Now let’s see if I can practice what I preach, eh?

Valerie O’Riordan is an Irish writer based in Manchester, England, currently studying creative writing at the University of Manchester.  She blogs at Not Exactly True.

For most of us, writing is a somewhat solitary pursuit - after all, it’s hard to actually work on a story if you’re chatting to your Mom, IM’ing your best friend, or grabbing lunch with hubby. But there comes a time in every writer’s life when a certain kind of company becomes necessary.

A certain kind of company? I know, it sounds very Eliot Spitzer-ish. But choosing who to talk to about your baby novel is a fraught process. Will they like it? Will they hate it? Will they think it’s-actually-very-funny-or-realize-I-stole-all-my-jokes-from-ten-year-old-Leno-shows?

The best way to get talking about your novel is to start with strangers (Eliot Spitzer, I know) who write. And the best place to find them? Writing classes.

Writing classes are excellent for writers at any stage in their career. They’re a safe place to talk shop, learn tips, tricks, and techniques, and commiserate over dialogue that falls flat and characters who refuse to behave.

And, of course, it’s easy to pick apart someone else’s work. But writing classes are all about tit-for-tat, I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours. So what do you do when it’s your turn to put something up for a critique?

Before you submit:

1. Polish. Spend some time ensuring your work is as polished as you can make it. This isn’t for the critiquers’ benefit–it’s for yours. If your classmates aren’t wasting time with line edits, they’re more likely to pick up plot and character issues.
2. Make a list of things you’d like your critiquers to think about. It doesn’t have to be long and detailed–even one or two points is fine. If you can, write your list on the workshop copies, or add a page about it. If you know certain people in your group have a skill set you could use, it’s okay to ask them to pay greater attention to the relevant sections (such as getting a cardiologist to help out with the details of a heart attack).

The day of:

Years after my first workshop, I still tremble when it’s my turn to get feedback. A lot of my writer friends say the same thing. What I’ve learned, though, is that the trick to getting the most out of your first workshop is two-fold:

1. Understand that you’re human, and that nobody gets everything right the first time around.
2. Understand that your classmates are human, and that nobody gets everything right the first time around.

Critiquing is an art form. There’s a fine balance to helping a writer improve their work, and tearing down everything you don’t like. It’s also a very personal thing. I may love this description:

Cathy was the sort of the person who didn’t like to slow down, who didn’t like to wait. Cathy was the sort of the person who’d skip a visit to the doctor’s even when her neck would no longer fit through the door.

Our classmate, Kathy with a K, may hate it. And that’s okay.

The point is, both Kathy with a K and I have spent time thinking about your work. Your job is to take our feedback and run with it. How? By being true to you.

When I was first writing, I’d change my manuscript at the drop of a hat. Don’t like my main character’s name? No problem, I’ll give him a new one. Think the mother is too harsh? Well, she doesn’t need to be in there anyway. And while this made my critiquers feel useful, it ruined my work. Yes, ruined–because the story was no longer mine.  Nowadays, I work by the rule of three, i.e.

1. Just one opinion? Probably no big deal.
2. Two opinions? Flag it as something to think about.
3. Three opinions? It’s a problem, and I have to make a change.

Writing classes, daunting as they are, are definitely worth the time and effort. But when all’s said and done, remember that your work is your work. Even if you, Kathy with a K, and I are all working on stories about dogs learning to fly an airplane (and who doesn’t love dog-acting-as-human tales?), they’ll never be the same. Why? Our experiences, our voices are different. And that’s just the way it should be.

Peta Jinnath Andersen is a freelance writer and editor in Cambridge, MA. Her flash fiction story, The Jar, will be appearing in an upcoming issue of  Kaleidotrope . She’s currently working on her first novel.

The house is quiet, and smells of my favorite jasmine candle. Outside, Texas is thundering rain on the roof and windows. I can write for hours like this. I like to think maybe today, I will get the chance to do so. The honest truth is this thunderstorm will pass in about twenty minutes, the house will be alive with voices sooner than later, and my candle will burn out. Then it’s back to the perfectly non-ideal writing environment, but you know what? I’ll still write. Nothing can keep me from it.

My inner self drives me to write, not my outside circumstances. The voices in my heart gather from experiences, and drive my fingers to pick up that pen and paper and scribble like a mad woman. Various emotions, thoughts, memories, take on a personality and demand a life of their own. I let my muse write whatever it wants. This is where magic and power lies. If I handcuff my muse to a turkey platter and demand it write turkeys, it will write turkeys, but the turkeys, unlike Edward, won’t sparkle. Powerful writing is dependent upon you giving boundless freedom to your muse to roam and develop.

Life. So much simple life eats up our time, just the normal things you need to do to get through a week, a month– jobs, commuting, dating, spouses, children, family members, family issues, friends, neighbors, college, illness, loved one’s deaths, car accidents, doctor appointments /dentist / hair appointments, church, holidays, yard work, paying bills, getting a second job to pay the bills, and oh yeah, having fun –that when you have a spare second, that moment in the evening when the world is quiet, dark, and you are left with your own thoughts, a glass of wine on your desk, and a blank computer screen, it’s so easy to let the negative voice come out.

It discourages you because: another reject, there are those ‘other writers’ that are better than you, you don’t get grammar, what the heck is a ‘sympathetic character’? Or is it ‘pathetic character’? Are you supposed to be outlining plots or do you go all willy nilly all over the place- omg, does your writing suck? You feel like it sucks. Is this just a pipe dream? Your spouse/ girlfriend/ boyfriend/mother/preacher/brother/best friend/ co-worker thinks your writing is lame and childish – who reads anyway? What if the preacher finds out your character said the F word, and he thinks you are the one really saying the F word, but you really honestly don’t say the fucking F word, but he might think you do…

On and on and on these thoughts go until your glass of wine is gone, and you wonder what the preacher would think if he knew you just drank a glass of wine, and then you remember you have to take your grandmother to chemo tomorrow. You feel tired, drained, discouraged.

What happens next is what separates the people who succeed from the people who don’t. It’s not about genes, money, health, good looks, or ‘natural talent’. It’s what happens with that very next breath and decision you make. You either:

1) Stand up, drop your glass in the sink, brush your teeth, flop in bed exhausted – another day done and gone. You will rise tomorrow, none the closer to anything. In fact, you are falling backwards from your dream because you lack the motivation to move forward.

Or

2) You tell all your doubts to go hell heck. You sit down and force those thousand or five hundred words. If you are writing a novel and the muse wants to write it – write it. If you are worried about grandma’s chemo because the nurse can never find her frickin’ vein and you know its going to hurt when the nurse inserts the needle, fishes around, draws it out, stabs it in again – you write a story about that anger, that fear. You just write it. And then, if you are writing flashes or shorts, you submit it – even if you think it sucks and it probably does. Doesn’t matter. You do it anyway. Someone will publish it. You keep writing, day after day. Night after night. And when you are done writing, you read.  You read because you need to keep that creative tank filled with how the pros do it. You do it and you keep on doing it. You’re more exhausted than you would have been without writing and reading, but it’s okay, because you are working your dream, what you want.  No one can take that from you. No one.

And this is what I’ve been doing.

I hope this speaks to you. I hope this causes you to ditch those doubts, fears, fatigue, and just go for it. Magic beans, golden pens, or supportive friends aren’t going to fulfill your dreams as a writer. Only you can do that, butt in chair, writing away when the whole world is sleeping or falling apart around you.

Decide not to let outside circumstances be a barrier to your muse. Let your inner voice speak, and write it – no matter what. Trust you to be you. This is your life, your dream. The only way to make it as a writer is to jump in heart and soul. That sounds so cliché’, huh? Sometimes the truths in life are cliché’. Deal with it.

My muse wants cheesecake. So far, the ingredients can be difficult to come by, but it tastes great, and it just keeps getting better.

Jodi MacArthur serves imagination raw on an open flame. Bring your fork to www.jodimacarthur.blogspot.com. Published online and in print, she is working on her first novel, Devil’s Eye.

“Writers write.”  Who said that? Flannery O’Connor or Stephen King? I can’t remember, but the veracity of the statement cannot be challenged. No words on paper: no tome.

The better question might be, “How do writers manage to write in REAL LIFE?” How do they come up with a steady stream of sentences, paragraphs, story beats? Maybe some are born with enough talent and drive to block out the temptations of the Friday morning Sudoku, but for most of us, the world is full of enticements, obligations, distractions, and bicyclists smashing into trashcans, pounding on doors to harass owners about city-dictated trashcan placement. These intrusions challenge our ability to meet writing goals, but retaining focus, an outlined plan to commit to writing, helps us remain in office chairs, fingers flitting over keys, heads hunched toward screens.

But how can I ignore husband, kids, friends? Don’t I need to exercise, shop for healthy food? Stay up on the election news?  Do I have to skip Project Runway, American Idol, Without A Trace?

It’s a balance, and focusing on that balance leads to symbiotic interplay between the two. In other words, pay off.

Family? Friends? We have to have them. Can’t really live–or write–without them and all those obnoxious, needy, freeway-jamming, gum-chewing, rude and crude other people too. They are our characters, and the subsequent drama of their–and our–tangled relationships provide us with themes and plots. So letting people muddy up our lives? Gotta happen.

Then there’s the issue of health, exercise, brushing teeth, and that no sugar rule. And the need to refill Julia Cameron’s proverbial well with sunny days of rebelling against routine and late nights devoted to deep substantial reading. Plots build themselves on early morning walks, scene by scene, block by block. “To Build a Fire” gave birth to my story “Richie’s Last Shot” and The Red Tent to “Honeymoon at the Oasis Hotel.” Are these distractions or assets? Both.

As for the news, election or not, jury duty, the media, the Lakers, pop culture, and the biggest distraction: TV? Acts of living can shatter anyone’s focus, but while they confuse us, they provide us with insights, while they frustrate us, they bring us understanding, while they subject us to banality and routine, they teach us the rhythm of patterns. These lessons, in turn, gift us with material from which we pull universal truths, the heart of good writing.

Awareness of how REAL LIFE devours both our time and our passion is all-important. The solution is deciding to do something about it–Plan. Follow through. Rejoice. And accept the idea that spending time in the act of writing is a blessing.

I used to believe that “having talent” meant writers were born, not made, and were compelled to write day and night. With no effort on their part, they could separate themselves from what other people wanted them to do and instead, blissfully compose epic novels. That certainly wasn’t me. I had tasks to do at home, sometimes a job, demands of family, obligations to others. Since I was overwhelmed by RL, I wrote sporadically, fitfully, so I couldn’t have been “born to write.” I took this logic another step: “Not born to write” must mean I have no talent. I let this idea defeat me. Since I struggled to overcome distractions to writing, I must not have been born to write. If I was, I would let nothing stand in my way.

I don’t believe this anymore. People who want to write eventually figure out some way to navigate the obstacles. They will find a balance. Writing is a choice. And choice demand action–and focus.  After all, writers write.

Post originally published at Gay Degani’s Words in Place blog on Wednesday, March 05, 2008. Gay is the editor of EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles. She has stories forthcoming in Paradigm, Every Day Fiction,  The Battered Suitcase, and 10Flash.

The worst thing about writing groups is their tendency to become “reading groups.”  It starts with someone saying, “Here’s a piece I wrote in college,”  or “One I dusted off so I’d have something to read.” 

“NO!”  I’ve been shouting at our group of  ten or a dozen writers who show up.  “Read the things you want critiqued.  They’re being criticized so you can submit.  And you submit for fame, money or simple self-validation.  But no desk-drawer crap!”

 The best thing to come out of these groups is solid commentary, insights into what you’ve just read, and “gotchas” for those damn typos that creep in.  (The aural experience may also lead a writer to clasp fist to forehead and realize the words are hollow exercises in periphrastic verbosity.)  Educationally, the group can provide information on multiple submissions, markets, querying, confusion over editorial style and on and on.

Suggestions:

• First,  the value can be ramped up if members will share copies of their writing.  (Copies can be printed cheaply in draft quality mode.) 
• Second, someone needs to lead the group to keep order.  (The group I began facilitating was floundering and leaderless.) 
• Third, set the ground rules: No one delivers a recitation about what they’re going to read in a few minutes, the critiques must be constructive, and the reader should keep quiet until the comments are all in. 
• Fourth, “someone” should recap in an e-mail who read what, encourage members, mention successful sales or book signings, provide links to sites like Wordtrip and Duotrope, and maintaintain an all-members mailing list.  
• Fifth, send out the occasional news release that your group will be meeting at the library or local bookstore—and invite all interested writers.

 Those are just my opinions, but early on, our members–some 27 in all–asked to begin meeting twice a month.  So, how are you guys doing with your writing groups?  Are they useful?  Any tips to add?

Walter Giersbach’s fiction has appeared Bewildering Stories, Big Pulp, Every Day Fiction, Everyday Weirdness, Lunch Hour Stories, Mouth Full of Bullets, Mystery Authors, OG Short Fiction, Northwoods Journal, Paradigm Journal, Short Fiction World, Southern Fried Weirdness, The Short Humour Site and Written Word.  Two volumes of short stories, Cruising the Green of Second Avenue, have been published by Wild Child (www.wildchildpublishing.com).  He also served for three decades as director of communications for Fortune 500 companies.

Ever notice how much writing advice there is floating around out there?  Well here are some of the most common ones I’ve heard and my take on them.

Advice: Writing is re-writing.

“I don’t write, I rewrite, that’s when all the fun begins. I just get it all out in the first draft, then I spend countless hours going back and editing, editing, editing.”

Okay, revision is important. But do we really just need to throw caution to the wind when do our first drafts? I contend that, especially with flash, the answer is no. I think those hours editing, editing, editing would be far better spent studying dramatic structure, successful stories we admire, or even just day dreaming. You put good stuff in, good stuff will come out. Overworking a flash piece can ruin it by the second pass. Too much revision is far worse than not enough.

Suggestion: If it doesn’t work set it aside for a while, a couple of months. Let the ideas percolate, then rewrite it from memory.

Advice: Keep a notebook for ideas.

“I keep a little notebook that I carry everywhere and record every stray thought that pops into my head. It’s a rich goldmine of ideas.”

Yeah, I’m sure it is a rich goldmine of random ideas. But good fiction is not made out of random thoughts. Yes, you might put a seed for a good idea in there sometime.  Yes, it might turn into a story for you. My line of thought on this advice is that if the idea is not good enough to stick in your head, it’s probably not all that great of an idea. If you aren’t obsessed with the idea, it’s not worth writing about. Flash is short and sweet, most of us are quite capable of rendering the whole thing in our heads.

Suggestion: Most authors I know do keep some kind of idea file on their computer usually just a one liner or a title. There is nothing wrong with this, per se, but again, if you can’t keep the idea in your head long enough to sit down and file it, it probably is not worth saving.

Advice: Write everyday, form a habit.

“I get up every morning at the crack of dawn, and write four pages.  If not, evil gremlins will come and eat my brains!”

Would be nice to have that kind of motivation, right? Unfortunately it is impossible to do this for most people. I think most of us writing flash are not professional writers and have jobs and families, and complex ‘real-life’  lives to attend to.  One of the fun things about writing flash is it doesn’t require long term commitment. Why not dash out a flash when you have a few minutes? No need to feel guilty that you can’t always find the time.

Suggestion: To be efficient with your time, combine daydreaming with a strong understanding of the craft of fiction. It’s often easier to fit in a few minutes reading up on writing advice than to produce a draft. Better that you do something towards developing your skills than nothing. Read, develop the story in your head, watch people (your kids, coworkers, etc) for details that might be useful. Anything.

Advice: Author’s should always get paid for their work.

“I only submit to top tier magazines that pay pro rates.”

Get published much? Probably not. The fact is there are a 1000 writers who are worse than you who are getting published. And there are a 1000 writers better than you waiting in line for their slots. Writers should get paid for their work, but keep in mind that flash is a close cousin to poetry, traditionally not a very lucrative venture. Most flash ezines need the money more than you do. Most flash ezines are labors of love with the editors paying out of their pockets.

Suggestion: Donate cash payments back to the ezine or some where like Duotrope these are the places that are keeping the scene alive. They are developing the audience for you. Think of your donated flashes as advertisements for your longer works (you are writing a novel aren’t you? Or will someday.) Creating ‘branding’ for your fiction has a long term value that exceeds the professional rates. We new writers have a vested interest in keeping the scene alive, right? (Obviously I’m not saying one should never submit to top tier magazines, just that not every story you write will be top tier.)

Advice: Writing is magical, mystical and hard.

“Every word I write is gut-wrenching agony, exposing my soul to the world.”

Right. This is the worst of the lot. I’ve often thought, I must be doing this wrong. I’ve never been miserable writing;  if so I wouldn’t do it. There are some stages I like more than others, of course. But if writing is a painful experience at any level, for god-sakes, go take up needlepoint or something. Writing is a craft; writing can be used to illustrate complex philosophy, existential woe, or something as simple as a lost pet that is found. Writing is like wood working, model ship building, or painting. It takes practice and determination. If it is causing you to suffer, go do something else; the world has enough writers. Flash is a bad place to try to unleash your angst and misery, not enough room for that sort of thing.

Suggestion: Write for fun; write for yourself; write from the heart, but most of all, write your best. If you’ve done your best then you’ve succeeded. Develop your craft; develop yourself as a human being, but where the two overlap is thin and fragile and can easily wreck an otherwise perfectly good story.

Advice: Bosley has a clue, listen to him.

“Bosley Gravel is a writing genius and with his dozens of published short stories and a forthcoming novel The Movie from BeWrite Books slated for pre-Christmas release), he must know almost everything there is to know about writing.”

Ahem, while I appreciate the flattery–what a load. If there were to be a Number One Rule about writing, it would be that there are no rules.

Suggestion: Do what works for you. Trust your instincts. That’s not to say ignore all advice you get because you know best. Lots of editors and writers will offer you perfectly good advice and lots of them will not ‘get’ your writing and make some very odd suggestions. Your job is to separate the two.

Knowing what advice to take and when to trust your own instincts can be hard and confusing sometimes, but becoming an expert in any field is difficult. The bottom line is that writing is an act of individualism. Only you can write your stories and only you can make them perfect. If some advice doesn’t suit you, ignore it. It’s allowed, and I’ll even suggest it for the best. Keeps things interesting.

Don’t agree?  Want to fight about it?   Post a comment and tell us your take on these or any other bits of advice you’ve heard.

Bosley Gravel, eclectic hack writer, was born in the Midwest, and came of age in Texas and southern New Mexico. He writes in a variety of genres. His fiction focuses on the absurdly tragic, and the tragically absurd. He likes good black coffee, nightmares, Billie Holiday, and that hour just before the sun comes up. Visit his site for links to his fiction, and contact information.

Coming soon: his debut literary novel The Movie from BeWrite Books (for pre-Christmas Release).

There’s a knocking on the door that you must answer, but you are not ready to answer it. You have to put down those words circling your mind like a theme from a musical; you have to put them down immediately before they vanish. But your hands won’t move on the keyboard, because of the knocking. It must be him. You feel some relief even though you were not thinking of him, at least not with that part of your mind which always deals with the writing bug that burrowed into you with the urgency of a Japanese Bullet Train, when the children grew old enough to be sent (“packed off”, he’d said) to a boarding school. You release a long breath and get up without putting the words down.

The angry voice inside your mind reminds you that the words you ignored in order to answer the door will not return. No matter how hard you concentrate later, they will not return. The angry voice has a habit of triggering off a virtual tirade inside your head, aided by jagged pieces of memory that tell you again and again that nobody cares about your writing and your desire to be a much feted author; least of all him. You are after all just another housewife. Once upon a time you had a promising career; your upward mobility had been neck to neck with his; but that was before the babies arrived and you stepped indoors so he could soar outdoors. To be fair, he did his part by keeping you warm and up-to-date with all the latest gadgets, holiday destinations and smart-casual clothes. Nevertheless you cried often, acid tears stinging your heart.

It’s the usual story of syrupy sacrifice and martyrdom. You don’t feel special any more. Every rejection slip that drops into your inbox tells you how crowded the ocean is. Your only hope in a thousand is to get trawled up in a net among similar hundreds, to be served together in a blend of spices, consumed and then forgotten. You accepted this state of affairs years ago. But you have undying faith in your talent. You know you can do it; you know that you could have done it before. If only…

You savor the singed feeling that resentment produces inside you. It’s a flame fanned vigorously by the sense of martyrdom that has followed you like a faithful dog ever since your maternity sabbatical got stretched and stretched until it became voluntary superannuation. He knows how you feel.

He got a batch of visiting cards made, with your name and “Writer” written in sloping serif type below that, and your email and phone number and address on the reverse. You shrugged and put them away in a drawer. He bought you a pair of solitaires. You wore them. Then you told him flintily that you could have bought them yourself, if only… Later on you’d made up for it by cooking a good meal and doing nice things to him.

Sometimes, in moments of weakness, which have a habit of hitting you in the middle of a good day of writing, you feel like throwing your arms around him and telling him that he’s the best thing that happened to you and he must be patient. Oh, he must. He must, for the good day will surely arrive, and all his privations and yours too, will be gone forever. But today is not such a day. Your footsteps stamp your irritation on the floor, because you have to answer the door. And, the words are gone. He will notice your irritation and enter quietly. He will wash up and watch TV; later on he’ll ask you in a soft voice if you would like a drink before dinner, and depending on your answer, he will either fill two glasses or continue watching TV. There is buoyancy in your step as you visualize his face. You swing open the door.

There’s nobody there. You blink a couple of times in the late afternoon sunlight. You watch the watchman as he slowly ambles towards you. You hear him say in his creaky but patient voice that the courier boy didn’t wait because you took so long to open the door.

[Author’s note: This whimsical piece won honorable mention in The Verb Magazine’s “Looking at You Contest” and an excerpt was posted in the October 2007 issue of The Verb. It is pretty much my own story; one of those days when the writer within is angry!]

Rumjhum Biswas’s fiction and poetry have been published in all the five continents, in print as well as online journals and anthologies. She has won prizes for poetrry in India and was long listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2006. She blogs at htt://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com

LATELY, I’VE BEEN FIGHTING THE EXCUSE MONSTER— that insidious little voice inside my head that whispers excuses for not writing. I’m too tired. I’m too busy. I have no ideas. The list goes on and on.

Now, there is a difference between a reason and an excuse. Sometimes, you really do have writer’s block or you just worked a ton of overtime and are brain-fried. But, other times, you’re just giving into the excuse monster.

I guess it’s the same for any aspect of your life. You have to put time into something to get something out of it or to get to the next level. If I don’t spend time writing stories and honing my craft, I’m won’t have stories to submit or ever improve in my craft. Both of those mean that this writing thing is never going to be any more than a hobby for me.

Writing as a hobby isn’t a bad thing. Tons of people do it. But I want something more. And if I want that something more, then I have to banish the excuse monster and his whispers about laundry, returning phone calls, and surfing the Internet, and get writing.

Of course, even still, the odds are against me. There are way more aspiring authors/novelists out there than those that get published every year. But, to quote one of my favorite movies, “Your odds go up when you file an application.”

What about you guys? Career or hobby? What do you think? And what do you think will help you achieve your goal?

Erin M. Kinch lives and writes in Fort Worth, Texas. Visit her blog, Living the Fictional Dream at www.erinmkinch.com for links to her published stories and more of her musings on writing. A version of this post was originally posted on her blog on 7/10/08.

I have found that my own life experiences is the best source of material for me to draw from when I write. All of my short stories, to date are technically fiction, but they are heavily laced with real events and people from my past.

Right now, I am in the process of writing an essay that informs. When finished it is to be a minimum of 2,000 words. I am sure that all of you are well aware of how boring such a paper can end up being. . .and I did not want that. . .so I wanted to choose a subject that would be personal to me, knowing that in this way, I could give it a more human face. I chose Mnemonics (aka memory techniques). I am in college for the first time ever.

I will be 54 years of age this July 27th. The first thing I noticed when coming back to a formal education setting, was that it was taking me longer to learn new things. I was so stressed that I withdrew from two classes my first semester (Math and Biology) but, continued on with my English class. Talking to my advisor about the problem I was having was my saving grace, because I learned about these memory techniques. This semester I am taking a full load and maintaining a high G.P.A.

I am being published soon in two separate genres: a magazine called Trestle Creek Review, and an upcoming English book for use in college class rooms across the country. Both of the short submitted stories are fiction, but based on my own life experience.

Happy writing!

Margie Lott Chapman lives in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho with her husband, Bill. . .daughter & son-in-law, Wendy & Dave. . .two granddaughters, Brittany & Melissa, and numerous pets. She is a non-traditional student at NIC, majoring in English & working towards her bachelors. She has two of her short stories being published early next year, and looks forward to being accepted at Every Day Fiction, eventually, if and when she ever gets the hang of writing flash fiction. :~)