Friday Flash Fiction - week 48

Red Lipstick

Fire engine red lipstick on the porcelain cup sends shivers down my spine. I try wiping it off with my thumb, but it just smudges further across the rim. That woman has been here again. I fight the scream bubbling up inside of me. No matter how many times I tell Dave I don’t want her here, she still keeps managing to worm her way in anyway. He knows how much I hate her; for her philandering ways, for sending my father to an early grave, for ruining my childhood. Keep your options open is his argument. You never know when you might need her again. Like I’d ever want to go back, or have anything to do with her. My whole life I’ve been trying to escape from her claws, but Dave doesn’t understand and never will. A heavy sigh leaves me and I turn on the hot water to do the washing up. 

Laura Besley

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Flash Fiction diary

Five Fridays, five senses for #flashsense. 

And happy 4th anniversary to #fridayflash as well. Didn't have time to take part in the blog hop. Hopefully next year. Wonderful community of flash fiction writers. 

May is National Short Story Month. I've joined A.M. Harte's Senseless Challenge: 

We have five senses.
May has five Fridays.
Each Friday is dedicated to one of the senses.

The schedule is:

May 03: Sight
May 10: Sound
May 17: Smell
May 24: Taste
May 31: Touch

There are no rules. You can take part for one week or all five. You can write about not having that week’s sense or only having it. So...here goes! 

Flash Fortnightly #15 is Lost. Inspired by all the reading I did about WWII in April. Click here for the link. 





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Flash Fiction is short enough to read whilst you're waiting for the kettle to boil. It's fairly quick to write too, but with it being so short, every word has to count. 

On 4th May 2012 I decided to embark on a project: to write a piece of Flash Fiction every day. I'm hoping this will keep the creative juices flowing and ultimately help me hone my craft. Every Friday I'll be posting 'the best of the week' onto my blog for you to read. If you have anything to say (good or 'constructive'!), I'm open to comments.  

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Friday Flash Fiction - week 47

Lollipops in the Snow

‘Go on,’ Finley said. ‘I dare you.’
‘No,’ Jack replied, with a mouth full of Coco Pops. ‘You do it.’ 
‘I said it first.’ Finley looked at his younger brother sitting opposite him at the breakfast table. ‘Chicken,’ he muttered. 
‘Am not!’ 
‘Are too! Unless you can prove it?’
‘Okay. Fine. I’ll do it.’ 
‘Danny from down the road said they taste like lollipops.’ 
‘Really?’ 
‘Yeah.’ 

Both slipped down from the IKEA chairs and stacked their two cereal bowls into the dishwasher. In the hallway they put on thick jackets, woollen scarfs, gloves and hats. They pulled on snow boots, Finley’s were green and Jack’s were blue, and stepped outside into the freezing air. 

It was less than twenty seconds to the nearest lamppost. 

‘Go on then,’ Finley urged. 
Jack gingerly stuck out his tongue and inched the tip closer to the lamppost. ‘Aah!’ He jumped back. ‘It’s freezing.’ 
‘Of course it is, you idiot. You didn’t do it properly. You need to lick it and hold it there for five seconds.’
‘Okay. Here goes…’
Jack gave the lamppost a lick. The soft covering of ice came away and melted immediately in his mouth. 
‘Hold it,’ Finley warned. ‘Five, four, three,-’ 
‘Argh…’
‘Two,-’
‘Aargh, aargh!’
‘One. Okay, you can let go now.’ 
‘I can’t,’ Jack said, with difficulty. ‘I’m stuck.’ 
Finley laughed and then caught an image of his mother who was bound to be furious. 
‘Don’t move.’ 
‘Funny.’ 
‘Sorry. I’ll go get Dad. He’ll know what to do.’ 

Jack stood glued to the lamppost. It tasted of nothing.

Laura Besley

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Flash Fiction diary

This story is dedicated to my good friend Gillian, her husband, and her two boys Finley and Jack. 

May is National Short Story Month. I've joined A.M. Harte's Senseless Challenge: 

We have five senses.
May has five Fridays.
Each Friday is dedicated to one of the senses.

The schedule is:

May 03: Sight
May 10: Sound
May 17: Smell
May 24: Taste
May 31: Touch

There are no rules. You can take part for one week or all five. You can write about not having that week’s sense or only having it. So...here goes! 

Flash Fortnightly #14 is Desire for Belonging. A story about finding out who you are and whether you belong, or not. Click here for the link. 




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Flash Fiction is short enough to read whilst you're waiting for the kettle to boil. It's fairly quick to write too, but with it being so short, every word has to count. 

On 4th May 2012 I decided to embark on a project: to write a piece of Flash Fiction every day. I'm hoping this will keep the creative juices flowing and ultimately help me hone my craft. Every Friday I'll be posting 'the best of the week' onto my blog for you to read. If you have anything to say (good or 'constructive'!), I'm open to comments.  

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Friday Flash Fiction -week 46

A Great Story

The only smell in the tiny dark room was her own seven-day body odour. It was disgusting, like a pile of dirty towels stashed in the back of a gym. The thin door swung open and Paula caught a hint of something flowery. From her position in the far corner of the dank room she looked up, but the woman quickly put down a tray and scuttled back out, locking the door behind her.  On the worn carpet was a tray of food, the first food she’d seen in days: a homemade ham and pickle sandwich on brown bread and a box of Ribena. She bit into it and started to cry. Initially determined to savour it, chewing each mouthful slowly and carefully, her resolve swiftly melted and she scoffed it, shoving in each mouthful like an animal. Like the animal they’d turned her into. 

Paula had graduated in 2004 from her university of choice. She’d done an undergraduate degree in English Literature and then an M.A. in Journalism. Her career had started slowly: working for local papers and getting bite-sized chunks into the national newspapers on the pages no-one read. And then her friend’s cousin was killed in Bristol’s first honour killing and Paula had found her first great story. Her friend had warned her to keep out of it, but she hadn’t listened. She was hungry only for the story. 

Heavy footsteps stopped outside the door. 
‘Finished?’ he asked.
She nodded. 
‘Get up.’ 
She croaked. ‘Why?’
‘We’re going for a little ride.’ 
‘Where to?’
‘Never you mind.’   

Laura Besley

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Flash Fiction diary

May is National Short Story Month. I've joined A.M. Harte's Senseless Challenge: 

We have five senses.
May has five Fridays.
Each Friday is dedicated to one of the senses.

The schedule is:

May 03: Sight
May 10: Sound
May 17: Smell
May 24: Taste
May 31: Touch

There are no rules. You can take part for one week or all five. You can write about not having that week’s sense or only having it. So...here goes! 

Flash Fortnightly #13 is Pot of Gold. A rather dark tale with colours to cheer it up (a little). Click here for the link. 





_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Flash Fiction is short enough to read whilst you're waiting for the kettle to boil. It's fairly quick to write too, but with it being so short, every word has to count. 

On 4th May 2012 I decided to embark on a project: to write a piece of Flash Fiction every day. I'm hoping this will keep the creative juices flowing and ultimately help me hone my craft. Every Friday I'll be posting 'the best of the week' onto my blog for you to read. If you have anything to say (good or 'constructive'!), I'm open to comments.  

Thanks, as always, for reading.

The End of Flash 365

On May 4th 2012 I embarked on an adventure. A flash fiction adventure: to write one piece of flash fiction a day. For those of you who don't know what flash fiction is, it's fiction that is short, usually between 100 and 1,000 words. Anything shorter is micro fiction and anything longer is a short story.

I stumbled across this idea through Calum Kerr's blog. He wrote and published a piece of flash fiction daily. He is also the Director of National Flash Fiction Day, something which he launched with great success last year. This year's National Flash Fiction Day is to be held on 22nd June.    

Back to my adventure. I quickly cut down to one piece a day Monday to Friday (as I have very busy and long teaching days on Saturday and Sunday) and I skipped a few days too whilst on holiday. However, on other days I wrote two, three or four pieces. In total I wrote 260 pieces. Each week I picked one to publish on my blog and so Friday Flash Fiction was launched. During the year I published 44 pieces on my blog. I would like to thank everyone for all the comments - I don't think I would've been quite so happy to continue without that level of support. 

Because this form is so short, it's easy to experiment and I've tried various different things: 1st, 2nd, 3rd person perspective; male and female voices; different genres; the list is (almost) endless. Writing so often has taught me a lot about my writing, and I feel that I'm starting to develop a style. 

So, what does this mean for the future of my writing? I'm certainly not going to stop writing flash fiction. I have found a great group of supportive flash fiction writers on Friday Flash. I'm still writing Flash Fortnightly for Artipeeps (and have no intention of stopping that!) and May is taken care of with A.M. Harte's #flashsense challenge: to write about difference senses. And after that? I'm hoping to start writing some longer pieces again and maybe finish that book I started 18 months ago!