Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Year 2, Week 44: Results!

I had a great time reading this week’s entries. Lots of imagination among the lot of you. Well done everyone! Due to time-constraints and health (check my blog for more on that), I’m only going to tell the runner-up and winner what I thought about their stories.

Runner-upBill Engleson with “Once Upon a Time in The Dragonsong Mountains”

LOL! I really enjoyed this piece. Lucille is quite a character.

The semi-colon in the following sentence should be replaced by a colon. (A colon emphases what’s to come, while a semi-colon connects two related sentences.) So your sentence will look like this: “Which, I don’t need to remind most Aircraft enthusiasts, is what the classic Detwiller looks like: a giant dill pickle.” Check out the link below for a great article explaining the use of semi-colons.

Well done!

Winner Y2W44Neha Srivastava with “Warped Reality”

I really enjoyed the imagery in this piece. For a while I thought the main character was somehow able to split herself in two. Great twist!

A few notes: physics doesn’t need capitalisation (see below), the instances of semi-colon use must be replaced with either colons (:) or with commas (,) as shown in the piece below. Check out this article on the correct use of semi-colons. I also removed the extra comma in the fifth paragraph and the extra ones in the last. The words in bold I added – the sentences needed them to be complete. I also moved the last sentence to stand on its own for effect.

All-in-all a great flash fiction piece. Well done!

Warped Reality

"Why aren't you obeying the laws of physics?" I shouted at myself.

I clung to the roof like a ceiling fan with four arms, my four limbs transformed into those four arms, I looked like a creature from the netherworld. But I knew it was me.

A sudden jolt of electricity shook my core, like the motor of a fan when someone switches on the button. Hell, someone had switched on the button. The fan started rotating, first slowly and then at top speed.

Switching on a fan and it rotating is normal business, except this time the fan was me. As the speed increased, I began gasping for breath. My limbs were almost coming apart, my being screaming for help, for someone to switch off the fan, for the rotations to stop.

I wanted to come back to my gross body which lay in the bed below: the vantage point from where I was observing me. As my body on the ceiling rotated, my body on the bed went out of breath. In two places at the same time. Physics could not explain what was happening, but both my bodies wanted the fan to be turned off. Some external force prevented this.

Tired from trying to prevent my limbs from tearing or my heart from exploding, my bodies dozed off. I didn't realize when. Upon waking, I was no longer short of breath. However, my head was heavy and my body lethargic.
The cannabis drink was wearing off.


Thank you all for participating!


Until next Saturday…

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Cracked Flash: Year2, Week 44

Welcome to another round of Cracked Flash Fiction Competition!


Judge this week: Ronel

Word count: 300 max

How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.

Deadline: 
Midnight tonight, PDT.

Results announced: Next 
Wednesday afternoon.

Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories: they're for inspiration (and amusement).)
Prompt:

‘Why aren’t you obeying the laws of physics?’




Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Year 2 Week 43 Results!

Thanks to the four entrants for Week 43. Since there were four of you, I picked one winner and decided to comment on what I enjoyed about your pieces.

By the River by AJ Aguilar-van der Merwe

Some nice storytelling. This deserves to be read around the campfire!

Another Round at the Fox and Fowl by Bill Engleson

Lots of fresh simile and imagery. The second read through delivered more depth.

Siren Call by Ronel Janse van Vuuren

Beautiful descriptions of the mature and emerging sirens. Unexpected twist at the end-- I always love those.

Winner! 

Wicked Runs in the Genes by Anjela

Hilarious! Reading that line surprised and delighted me. I wasn't sure where you were going to take the story after the zinger of a first line, and you didn't disappoint. Your narrator is genuine and likeable. You took on an edgy topic and kept it real for general audiences. The curve ball into a more personal tone at the end works too.

Anjela Curtis
www.anjelacurtis.com
@anjelacurtis
257 words (Scrivner)

Wicked Runs in the Genes

Only the very oldest people remembered the old-fashioned way to make babies.

Grandma would sometimes drink wine and tell me wicked stories about how, once, humans were born with external sex organs. This was before the Government Omniscience Directive, the G.O.D., gained control and thought to mutate the human genome to prevent over-population.

With the number of people on Earth having reached critical mass, many died of starvation. More died from the resulting Hunger Wars that broke out when the strongest survivors attempted to claim Earth’s few remaining resources. Fearing the loss of power, the G.O.D. chose to intervene then and enforce government rule.

Forced to undergo sterilization, many of the elders escaped underground and continued to fight for humanity. My grandmother was one of the leaders, a former government genealogist and medical doctor. She rescued me—her only living genetic descendant, despite my lab beaker origins—and went on to build the resistance into what it is today. To honor her memory, I continue the fight and lead by example.

Having both endured years of sexual reassignment surgeries, my partner and I will be the first “beaker-babies” to attempt procreation in a manner in which humans were intended.

I’m neither a criminal nor the sexual deviant that the G.O.D would have you believe. I’m just a human being in love, who wanted dearly to have a baby with the person I chose as my mate. I could lie and say I wasn't looking forward to it. But, I guess "wicked" runs in my genes.

© 2017



Saturday, June 17, 2017

Year 2, Week 43


Judge This Week: Kelly

Word Count: 300 max

How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.

Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT! 

Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon.

Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories; they're for inspiration (and amusement).)

My husband sent me this quote to pet me about our prodigal teenager, but it applies to the writer life or any struggle for greatness. I hope you like it as much as I did.

"It is not the critic who counts: 
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled 
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. 
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes short again and again' 
who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions; 
who spends himself in a worthy cause; 
who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly 
so that his place shall never be with those timid souls 
who neither victory or defeat". 
~ Theodore Roosevelt

Prompt 

"Only the very oldest people remembered."

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Year 2, Week 42 Results!

We had six stories, including one late entry which couldn't be considered for the contest. Still, I had a great time reading them all. Stephen King would be impressed I'm sure. :)

Runner-up

Ronel Janse van Vuuren with Forest Inferno

What stuck with me about this story was the fine use of anthropomorphism. The fire's roar of rage over the bad eats was fun! Also the idea of sweating away one's very existence hits home with me personally as it was 90 degrees in my corner of the world today. This is more of a vignette than a story, but a well-painted one.

Winner!

Kim Davis with Shit Happens

This story instantly places me, gives me character, tone, tension. The writing is pristine, which never hurts. I found myself thinking of it long after, especially the moment when they locked eyes, when "the champagne glass came unseated." Well done! I love image of a newborn mountaintop rearing up like a giant's fist. Unexpected and jarring, but fresh and wonderful because of it. My one wish would be for a more creative title.

Shit Happens

When it happened, it happened fast. We were screaming along on a downwind run with the spinnaker pulling us into a glorious South Pacific sunset. The boss and his guests stood toasting one another with champagne in crystal classes. I’d tried break him of that habit, because I so often ended up scrambling around after broken glass when some fool forgot and a jibe sent his glass flying. This time, though, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. I saw no danger in the champagne flutes. I’d topped them up and stood with Bill at the wheel. 

None of us knew what happened. We were suddenly flying as the boat pitch poled and headed down. I caught the boss’s eye as his glasses came unseated and his champagne glass left his hand in slow motion. His mouth was open, but I couldn’t hear his voice with my own scream filling my ears. When the old man hit the water, I saw the boom smack the back of his head. His friends—who’d been forward of the mast—were forced down by the mainsail. None made it back to the surface. Bill and I were thrown clear of the boat by some miracle. Tommy, the deckhand, was trapped in his cabin.

We later learned that a newborn mountaintop had reared up like a giant’s fist to catch hold of our keel. Our forward momentum sent the bow straight down. Life rafts and safety vests were useless—there’d been no time. Bill and I were lucky. The crew of a schooner several hundred yards to starboard saw the whole thing and picked us up.

That day has become a metaphor that sums up life for me. Shit happens, even amid perfection. 


Till next time, writer friends. :)

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Year 2, Week 42

 Have some rules c:

Welcome to this week's Cracked Flash Fiction. This week's prompt comes from the book The Stand by Stephen King. And oldie but a goodie. 

Judge This Week: Kelly 

Word Count: 300 max
How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.  Thanks :)

Deadline: 12 AM SUNDAY (6/11) PST
Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon/evening.
Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition.  Have fun!
Prompt: "When it happened, it happened fast."


Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Year 2, Week 41: Results!

I really do apologise over the time-zone glitches that sprung up this week – who knew that certain applications will ignore the time you tell them they should be in and decide to take your actual location? Rise of the machines…

Anyhow, thanks Anne and Bill for participating.

Here’s what I loved about your stories:

Bill, your tongue-in-the-cheek global warming take had me grinning from the start.

Anne, I like your portal-fantasy a lot and think there’s a lot of potential there for a longer piece (more about the problem, fleshing out of characters, etc.).

I can't pick a favourite, so let's call it a fun writing exercise.

Until next Saturday…



Saturday, June 3, 2017

Year 2, Week 41

Welcome to another round of CFFC!



Judge this week: Ronel

Word count: 300 max

How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.

Deadline: 
Midnight tonight, PDT.

Results announced: Next Wednesday
 afternoon.

Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories: they're for inspiration (and amusement).)
Prompt:
‘Yes, but last week a dragon almost set my hair on fire, so it’s your turn to negotiate.’