Call me old. Call me slow. Just don't call me late for Happy Hour! This here post is about a growing niche in short-short story writing called flash fiction.
You might think of flash fiction as somewhat akin to Tweets on steroids in that the idea is to tell a coherent, engaging story within a limited word count. Exactly what that limit is depends on the guidelines of the various publishers. Typically it may range from 200 to 2,000 words, but the trend currently seems to be for stories with word counts well south of 1,000.
No, I have not tried my tired hand at it yet, but I'm fixin' to as we say here on the knife edge of West Texas. In fact, I need to get to it rather quickly as the deadline for entry in the latest contest to thread my email closes at one minute to midnight tonight.
If any of my writerly friends out there wish to while away a snowed-in Saturday (on the East Coast, at least) whittling out a yarn in 250 words or less under some rather tricky keyword requirements, you can get the particulars on this contest from my friends at Flash Fiction Chronicles.
Got you curious about these short shorts? You can learn more and sample some outstanding flash fiction at Flash Fiction Online.
If You’d Be Mine
I’d dang near wrestle a porcupine
If you’d be my Valentine;
Barrel down the Brazos to the old Gulf brine
If you’d be my Valentine.
I’d gladly let the Dow decline
So long as you’re my Valentine;
Stand naked in Times Square singing “Clementine”
So long as you’re my Valentine.
I’d crawl on my knees to Caroline
To seal the deal and make you mine;
I’d cut and paste ‘til the sun don’t shine
To seal the deal and make you mine.
To the craters of the moon I’d walk the line
If you’d be my Valentine;
That is to say, away I’d pine
Unless you be my Valentine.
© Jim Miller 2013
Howdy!
Yes, we're back, launching yet another edition of...what? Pure cussedness? Naw, that doesn't sound quite right, although the occasional rant well may be in order. Old farts do like to vent!
Unfortunately, young whippersnappers aren't all that big on listening when we do.
Picking up where we left off from Rolling Plains Journal? Something like that, I suppose. Only this time we are not pinning ourselves to a specific geographic region. I guess you could say, then, we are going GLOBAL!
By the way, for those of you--all ONE of you--who read our closing RPJ post, we remain for the moment on Texas' Rolling Plains. Relocation still awaits closing some family property here. Once that is settled, we will be off to the Pacific Northwest! Now THAT's going to be something to write about!!
As you may have suspected by now, we don't have a mission statement exactly yet for this new venture. So for now we're just going to call it a continuing education lab on writing online content for fun and profit.
To that end we chose to launch with Blogger in order to monetize this venture through Google AdSense. WordPress does not allow that. But we still love WordPress as a blogging platform. If you have not done so already, please drop by The Happy Homesteader, our home on the WordPress range.
We may as well mention here, too, that we have staked out a claim at HubPages.com.
We wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone who may be looking to join a progressive community of online writers to help polish their craft and pick up some coffee money.
That's it for now. We're going to go eat some fish--tilapia--and think on a proper mission statement. Meanwhile, don't be a stranger, and if you read something here that moves you, we'd be obliged if you would let us know. Our comments door is always open!
Y'all come back now, hear!
