So we had a weird challenge from Chuck Wendig over at terribleminds.com this week. He gave us a strange random sentence: “The noticed android walks past a wondering chamber.” and told us to use it as the first sentence of our 1000 word or less flash. Usually I really think about these challenges and put a bit of work into crafting them, which is perhaps not true to the spirit of writing flash fiction, but I’ve always considered them to be just really short stories more than a quickie writing exercise. This week though I decided to just sit down and start writing and let it go where ever it went. What follows is the result. It’s fairly light and silly. It also contains a character I realized afterwards I’d blatantly stolen from a TV show. (bonus points to anyone who can recognize the character and show) I’ve decided to consider it a kind of homage. I doubt I’ll be facing any lawsuits over it.

As always, feel free to leave comments. I love feedback and am not just looking for a pat on the back (really!) let me know what you like or don’t like about any of my writing. You’ll be appreciated for it.

C-17, GR-81 and ACT

The noticed android walks past a wondering chamber.‭ ‬It doesn’t make it five steps before it decides being noticed by a nosy chamber annoys him.‭ ‬It,‭ ‬Cleanbot‭ ‬17,‭ ‬or C-17‭ ‬for short,‭ ‬clomps the five steps back to the chamber and holds up its left hand to the door plate.‭ ‬The door plate acknowledges C-17‭’‬s identity chip and opens the door.

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This week’s flash challenge from terribleminds.com was to choose our story’s setting from a list of options provided by Chuck Wendig. I chose “The Bone Cathedral”.

Interestingly this story sorta fits as a Father’s Day weekend story, though I hadn’t planned it that way going in and only thought of it when I started making this post. It also works as a kind of companion piece for my favorite flash story so far: Timeless Lilac. Sort of the other side of the coin.

Read. Enjoy. Comment.

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It’s that time again. This week’s flash fiction challenge from terribleminds.com asked us to pick any 4 of the following 8 words: saw, milkshake, bath, flowerpot, wheelchair, bully, zoo, heretic.

I chose the first 4 and used them to craft this small little tale. Now normally I don’t want to colour anyone’s feelings about the story before they read it, and I particularly don’t want to in this case, but I feel I should say that while in absolutely no way explicit this story could potentially be disturbing to some so consider yourselves warned. On the other hand anyone who reads this warning and gets more excited to read the story will probably find themselves disappointed.

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So, this weeks terribleminds.com flash challenge provided a link to a random sentence generator and fairly simple rules. Generate a sentence. Use it as the first of last sentence of your story. 1000 words maximum.

My first randomly generated sentence wasn’t very good, but Chuck decreed that the spirit of the challenge was to use an interesting randomly generated sentence, not necessarily the first one. So I went back and clicked for awhile until I had two sentences that I liked:

A malicious cosmology lusts in the electorate.

Another fountain fears!

I liked them both so much and quickly had a sketch of an idea for each so I decided to write both stories. So this week I’ve got two little bits of flash for you:

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This week over at terribleminds.com the bearded overlord has paint colors on the mind and has provided the following challenge:

I’m going to list ten paint colors. Choose one. This chosen paint color forms the title to your story.

Bonus challenge: try to make color a big part of the story. In imagery, plot, character, whatever.

So I picked my color and did what I could with it. These challenges always come with  a 1000 word limit and this week I’m coming in at 994. I’m not sure this is a story really. It feels more like a scene, but I’ll let you decide for yourselves. Please feel free to leave comments and criticism below.

Timeless Lilac

Carmen Solana followed the funeral director into the cream-colored chamber with its seamless, curved walls and was startled to find it already occupied. The director, Mr. Perkins, noticed Carmen’s surprise immediately.

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So this weeks terribleminds.com flash fiction challenge from Penmonkey-in-Chief Chuck Wendig was:

…Crazy pulp shiznit….

…To go cuh-razy with the over-the-top pulp weirdness…

I can’t say I’ve ever tried writing anything in a crazy pulp style, but that’s one of the great things about flash fiction challenges. So, I give you:

Countdown to Meltdown

A wailing alarm screamed bursts of ear-splitting noise throughout the facility. Periodically filling the silence between alarm bursts the too-sweet feminine voice of the main computer called out the time remaining.

“This facility will self-destruct in five minutes. Please seek the nearest escape pod.”

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