Category Archives: Fiction

Some Flash Fiction: In Response to a Pick a Setting, Write a Story Challenge

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Finally doing another terribleminds.com flash fiction challenge. This one required us to use one of a selection of settings again. I won’t tell you which I chose until the end. I’m calling this one:

Tick Tock

Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

The clicks and clacks echoed through the all too familiar pass and it sounded to Captain Davis like they still had the full regiment with them, instead of less than half. The sound would bolster his spirit in any place but this.

As the soldiers picked their way along the rough path Captain Davis wrestled with Colonel Coleman’s confidence like a hound would a piece of rawhide. How could the man seem so sure of himself? They were retreating at best and routed at worst. And this pass! Davis had done everything he could to turn the Colonel away from it, yet it was Davis’ own successful retreat through the pass three months ago that drove the Colonel to it. The irony chaffed at Davis and he couldn’t stop picking the scab it left.

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Looking For Beta-Readers To Join Me In An Experiment

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Hello any and all,

I’ve recently “finished” a new story and I’d like to try a little experiment with it. You see, when I say “finished” I mean I’ve done a first draft with one editing pass. My next usual step is to ask a few close friends to read through it and give me some feedback. These are my beta-readers, there are three of them and I’ve already sent the story off to them.

What I’d like to try is getting a wider circle of beta-readers to give me feedback, and that’s where you come in. If you are reading this, and interested in helping me out then I’d like to share this new story with you and hear what you think about it. I’d also like to use this as an opportunity to try out google drive.

Still with me? Ok – the story I’ve just finished clocks in at about 3,300 words and is probably best pigeonholed as Science Fiction Horror. I am looking for a maximum of 10 extra readers. Frankly, there probably aren’t 10 people interested in helping my out this way, but just in case I’m putting that limit up front.

If you would like to help me out in this (and I fully acknowledge that you would be doing me a great favor) then please contact me through the contact page above, or email me at jxilon [at] hotmail [dot] com, or leave a comment below with a real email I can reach you at. I will then share the story with you on google drive, which is where you will also be able to leave comments.

I’ll also share a small document with you giving some guidelines for giving feedback on the story but I’ll also say this here: I am not looking for hugs and congratulations. Sure, I want to hear what you like about the story, but I really need to hear what you don’t like about it. It’s the things that don’t work I need to identify and fix before moving on to the next stage with this story.

That’s all for now, I hope to hear from some of you.

A small, experiment of a post

Aside

So here’s a try at a different post format. Let’s see how it works…

I missed the deadline for this weeks #ThrusThreads flash competition but I had an idea for it and couldn’t help but right it anyway. I didn’t want to leave a story, no matter how small, unfinished and I’m counting it towards my story a day goal. It also gives me something to put on the blog today, I’m trying to get a post up everyday this week. I might be back with something later today about the newest title from monkeybrain comics but until then I give you:

Triumph

Phil stumbled through the gilded doors of the audience chamber and collapsed. Across the marble floor sat a white-haired, shriveled old man leaning on a gnarled staff. The Oracle.

The old man didn’t speak as Phil crawled, too exhausted to stand, toward him. When he had made it, his progress heralded by labored breathing and the rattle of the gear which hung off his pack, he let himself fall forward in a kind of bow. With the last of his strength he half-rose and knelt facing the awesome little man.

The Oracle only stared at him.

“I’ve braved your mountain. I’ve been stalked by yetis. I have not eaten for three days and my only water was snow I melted in my mouth. I think I may lose half my toes to frostbite. But I made it. Master I am here. I humbly claim my right to an answer,” Phil said.

The old man didn’t move, or blink, or speak for some seconds that felt like slices of eternity. Finally he gave an unsteady nod. “You know your choices?”

“Yes,” Phil said. “Tell me about my greatest triumph.”

“That is your wish?”

Phil nodded. “I need to know what lies in my future. I need hope.”

The old man just shook his head in sad, side-to-side arcs. “Your greatest triumph began at the foot of my mountain. You faced yetis, hunger and thirst…”

 

Flash Fiction: Time Travel Challenge

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So the current terribleminds flash fiction challenge was a call to embrace time travel and give it a prominent place in a story of 1000 words or less. This one proved pretty hard for me. I love time travel stories (huge Doctor Who fan) as a reader or viewer – but I found I really hated trying to write one. I’m really big on maintaining internal logic with my stories. Magic, super science, monsters and other crazy things are all fair game as long as they are consistent with the rules of the story-world you’ve created. Time Travel has a way of always smashing internal logic. Still, that was the challenge and I’ve done my best to answer it. I give you:

Saving the Future

“So you want to know where you come from, eh?”

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A Victory On The Flash Fiction Circuit

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So last week I made a post about winning an honorable mention in week 30 of the  #ThursThreads flash fiction challenge. Well, a couple of days later I entered the competition again for week 31 and this time I was declared the overall winner. Very cool.

You can read all the stories entered in the competition here. Pay particular attention to the entries from Robin Abess (@Angelique_Rider),  Cameron Lawton (@CameronLawton) and Rebekah Postupak (@postupak). They were the honorable mentions last week.

This was my entry:

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I Won A Little Something

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So one of the things that I’ve learned over the last few months is that there are a lot of writers out here on the internet. Twitter seems particularly full of them. The flash fiction challenges at terribleminds.com are great a great way to meet a small slice of this great population of authors and I do try my best to read and comment on as many of the challenge takers’ entries as possible – though I’ve been a little lax in this the last few weeks.

During these explorations of my fellow writers’ webplaces I started noticing that there is a community of them who just love flash fiction and micro fiction. They love it so much they’ve started little weekly micro-fiction writing contests. For example there are: #MenageMondays hosted over at “Defantly Literate” ( http://www.caramichaels.com ), the #55WordChallenge hosted at “Jezri’s Nightmares” ( http://www.lisamccourthollar.com/ ) and #ThursThreads hosted at “The Weird, the Wild, & the Wicked” ( http://siobhanmuir.blogspot.kr/ ). There are many more as well.

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