FlashNano2024

 

It's over!

During November there were 30 days of prompts to write a Flash Fiction piece to that prompt. I did 25 of them. This is the second year I've done FlashNano. 

It's like training for a marathon, a literary marathon, pushing my creative muscle to the fullest. It changes how I create. I also enjoy reading how others have used the prompt for their own stories.

When I work on a novel (see https://dlnelsonwriter.com) my characters live with me. They whisper in my ear when I'm cooking or yell at me thru the glass door as I shower. If I take a walk with my dog and husband, they point out something to add to a scene I might be working on.

In FlashNano2024, the character arrives, tell me what to do and leaves, They don't bother to stay for a cup of tea. Because it is so fast, there's no time to polish before the next one invited him/herself in and we are off again, although I could go back and polish some of them, change a word here or there, cut out an adverb, show not tell. Maybe I will.

November has time problems for me, but I adjusted. One story was written on a Toulouse-Lisbon flight. Another around the conference my husband was working in Portugal. The words were in my mind, except when we went to a tapas restaurant with the conference staff. Everything was so tasty that it will live in my memory forever.

Then as soon as we were back in France, it was time to transfer to our Geneva home for the winter. An eight-hour drive was good to think up the flash fictions for the one I'd missed in Portugal eating tapas.

Thought about the next story as I unpacked, set up the laptop and could sit down and pound out the piece and post it.

Off to Zurich. I stayed in the hotel while my husband did three interviews. He's a journalist. We were invited to lunch with one company, and our dog Sherlock, had his first professional lunch.

Back home in Geneva, I've heard a knock. "We're back!" Flo, Nancy and Rick, the three main characters in Twins, the novel I was working on before November, arrived with their suitcases. The month ahead has few interruptions and I should get back to work on it.

• "Have you decided how I will react when Alexandria tells me she's carrying her husband's baby?" Nancy asks. 
• "And I need to figure out why I can't stand Beth-Lee?" Flo says. "Never mind the company problems."
  
• "I want to continue being the fake CEO of the family business," Rick says.

In my mind, they make themselves tea and unpack. Outside it's cold. Tomorrow, I need to go reread what I've written before FlashNano. I will use my file card trick, a card per chapter. Makes it easy to rearrange. 

And I look forward to FlashNano2025.

FlashNano2024 Day 28 Sunrise Sunset

 

"What do you think they're up to?" Wendy was in bed, next to Jonathan, who would be her bridegroom in three days.

Jonathan kissed Wendy's forehead. "Definitely something. They're always sneaking off together."

"When my Mom had your folks for dinner, they went into my Dad's man cave and when I walked in they shut up and looked guilty, Wendy said."

Whenever Wendy and Jonathan had time between work and wedding details over the next three days, they tried to guess what was up with their fathers. The two men had been friends, work partners and golfing partners since forever and the fact that their children were marrying made it impossible for them to hide their joy.

It was partially because of that friendship that Wendy and Jonathan were marrying. The families did so much together, that their days Wendy and Jonathan played in the playpen evolved into kindergarten, then primary school junior and high school.

When they separated to go to different colleges, one of the West Coast and one on the East, the fathers were almost more upset then Wendy and Jonathan were. 

Working in the same building after graduation brought Wendy and Jonathan back together by chance and they melded together as if they had never parted.

The 75 wedding guests oohed and ahhed over the dinner. While waiting for the cake to be cut, the two fathers stood. The band handed them a mike each and they started to sing, "Sunrise Sunset" from Fiddler on The Roof.  As each man finished they went to their own offspring and hugged them then they went to the other's child. Dry eyes were not possible.

To hear the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpqg9vLXs4I

 

Free Write -- The Pen

A rainy Geneva day but J., R. and I sipped our tea, hot chocolate and espresso in a cozy café as we came up with our 10 minute Free Writes. We used two different timers to see if they were co-ordinated. They weren't, but close. Just a few seconds off.

Rick's Free Write Wooden Pen

Wandering through a dense forest in eastern Switzerland, early morning, with the dog, I spied a man-made structure that seemed to make no sense for being there. A four-sided box of wooden slats. About 10 feet each side. A pen. For keeping something in. An animal? Maybe one horse. Or perhaps some goats or sheep. But here? Surrounded by tall trees, some of which had fallen across the trail. This was public property. Why would a private individual build an enclosure, clearly for temporary purposes?

The dog and I walked closer to see if there was further evidence, maybe a sign, maybe a pile of crap that would suggest the size of the animal(s) corralled there. But nothing. From the undergrowth in and around, it was clear the pen had not been used for some time. One of the older slats had rotted and fallen partially to the ground. Easy for smaller animals to exit.

Could not have been a child’s ‘fort.’ Too sophisticated of a construction. But perhaps some young children had made use of it.

Then I noticed there was no gate. How to get the animals in or out? Lift them? Maybe there had never been any animals. Maybe the park ranger had scared the pen-builders away.

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com 

Julia's Free Write

Fall, my favorite season. I love everything about it, the cooler weather, the shortening of the days, and, above all the colors.

But that’s not the subject today.

What to do? He wouldn’t stay still. Hyperactive or what?

He had his grandsons for the day and as they both liked the outdoors; he decided that a walk was in order.  It worked great for the first 15 minutes, both boys walking along by his side, then things started falling apart with the elder wanting to dash here and there and the younger starting to lag.

They were in a wooded area with a few small cliffs and holes, so he was starting to panic.

Light bulb idea: picking up old limbs of trees, sticks and the like, he put them to building a small enclosure.

Lopsided and obviously not professional, it did capture their interest. That is until it was more or less finished and he put them both in it!

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends. Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/  

 D-L's Free Write

Jason and Anna believed not just in autumn walks, but in serious leaf kicking. They wanted to see who could kick higher, who could spot the reddest tree, and who could find a new path in the woods.

"If this were a mystery on television, we'd find a body," Anna said.

Jason stopped. "Look."

"Not a body, I hope," Anna said.

Jason walked off the path to a wooden pen, not a very big one, too small to hold an unhappy donkey. "What would a pen be doing eight miles from nowhere?"  

"Maybe it was for hunting dogs," Anna said.

"No, they could just walk out." 

They circled the pen. Jason picked up a tuft of brown fur. As a scientist he had lots of scientist buddies and he asked one of them to identify the fur.

A week later, Anna answered Jason's call.

"We've solved our mystery pen. It was bear fur."

She decided not to walk anywhere near there again.

Visit D-L's website at https://dlnelsonwriter.com 

Note: We later learned that pens like this one is put around saplings to protect them.

FlashNano2024 No. 26 The Beanpot

1888

I'm a beanpot and like all traditional beanpots I'm round with a cover.

Medora found me, brought me home. Every Saturday night she filled me with beans, an onion, a piece of salt pork and mollasses mixed with water and let me cook all day.

Supper included her children Archer and Florence and sometimes her husband Charles. I preferred it when Charles wasn't there. He was a nasty man and the meal was at its best tense and worse unpleasant. One day he left and never came back. Good riddance, I thought.

The only bad thing about him leaving: Florence, who was a great student, had to quit school in her junior year to work and bring in money.

1900

Maude has married Archer and Walter has married Florence. Saturday night suppers with me in the middle of the table were fun. Walter usually excuses himself early to study for his engineering exam.

1910

The family has moved. Maude and Archer are in a new house with their son Lawrence. Walter and Florence are entranced with their son Gordon. Maude and Florence alternate using me every Saturday night. The conversation might be about plans to finish the house which Walter and Florence  bought or something like the Shirtwaist Strike in New York. One Saturday night, Florence revealed she was pregnant. "We're hoping for a boy to play with Lawrence," Florence said.

1915

I stayed on the shelf for several Saturday nights. The family was in mourning. Although Lawrence and Gordon were healthy little boys, Lois from the moment she was born, failed to survive. Walter insister Florence get away for a day, but on the way to Gloucester, Florence became hysterical about going home. I heard her walk into the house from my place on the shelf, open the door to the nursery say something to the baby and shriek.

1917

Dorothy hasn't take the place of Lois, but her arrival has made the family hopeful again.

1929

I don't know much about the stock market and crashes, but the Saturday night conversations are teaching me a lot. I sit in the middle of the table. Walter and Archer still have their jobs. Medora is not that well and sometimes my beans are carried upstairs where she spends almost all her time in bed.

1941-42

Beans and rationing are the subjects at the table. Gordon is now grown and working as an insurance salesman. His blood pressure is too high so he can't join the army, which was his first reaction to Pearl Harbor. Dorothy has married a French Canadian, Jimmy. Maude and Archer have moved to New Jersey where he works for the telephone company. They talk about his climbing the ladder. That makes no sense to me if he had an office job.

A new little girl Donna is born. Dorothy is an over protective mother in my opinion. The wars go on in Europe and the Pacific.

1949

I've been moved to West Virginia where Jimmy operates a typewriter franchise, whatever that is. Everyone feels as if they are in a foreign country.They are called those damned Yankees.

1953

We have been back in our New England home for a long time. Somehow I got packed away and not "found" for a few months. It is so good to be back on the table with my bubbling beans. Bubbling beans. I love alliteration. I don't know who this McCarthy chap is, but Saturday nights everyone talks about him saving the country from Communism. I don't know what Communism is either.

1961

Lots of snow for JFK's inauguration. No one in the family is happy about it except Donna, who is now in college. So different around the table. Florence cooks, that's the same. Gordon, Medora, Walter are all gone. Jimmy and Dorothy divorced. Saturday is also game night after the dishes are done, although this Saturday night, they are doing a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of a lake. Everyone seems happy.

1990

A lot of time has gone by. Donna found me in the basement after Dorothy died, and quickly packed me away. I know I've travelled a long way to a place called Switzerland. She doesn't use me every Saturday night and sometimes she uses me during the week. She has a card written by Medora back when I was new that says how I should be filled. When company comes, Donna says I'm a family treasure.

Visit www.dlnelsonwriter.com

FlashNano2024 No. 25 - Time Running Away

 5:30

The alarm goes off. Maddy hits the button before it can disturb her husband. Who is she kidding? He can sleep through anything. She goes to her office to study for her exam for her graduate statistics course at Boston University that night. 

6:30

Shakes hubby awake. Gives the first wakeup call to Peter age 12 and Julie age 8. Into the shower. She dresses in a black suit, white sweater, black stockings and knee-high black boots, sets up breakfast. Leaves lunch money for the kids. Outside, she scrapes the frost from the car window.

6:49

Stuck in traffic already. Usually she gets another 20 miles before the first jam. Whatever possessed them to move so far away from her work? Doesn't matter to her husband who has his own IT service and works at home.

7:49

Arrives at the office. Answers 11 e-mails. Goes to coffee room for tea. Secretary is settling in and they checks on the day's schedule. The pile of papers in her in-tray diminishes only a little while the out-tray grows in the same amount. Her secretary takes it away, but leaves three more folders in the in-tray. Two are stuffed with papers.

9:00-noon

Four meetings, each requiring follow up work. She wonders about lunch. Orders in from restaurant on the ground floor. It's cold by the time she has a chance to take the first bite. She has finished two of the five items assigned from the morning meeting. 

l:15

Catches up on phone messages which arrived during the meetings. Lists follow ups needed. Makes three calls and asks secretary to set up a meeting with Bob, Janice and Sylvester for next Monday and lists things to put on the agenda. Makes sure every thing is on her computerized time work sheet.

2:30

Goes downstairs to get on the bus taking staff to Philip DuBois's funeral. He worked in the next office and she still feels badly that she didn't noticed how he had seemed depressed over his workload and not enough time with his three-year old twins. 35? Much too young to die. She wondered how his wife, the bitch, felt when the police came to tell her he'd hung himself in a motel room. Just like Phil to be too considerate to do it at home where she or the kids could find him.

5:00

Time to head for class, the test, for which she doesn't feel prepared. She walks by the other offices where her colleagues are at work for at least two or more hours -- as she would be, if she wasn't going for the MBA.

5:15

Finds a parking place in the garage near the B.U building where the class is. Still a lot of cars, but there are free spaces. Before getting out of her car, she checks the floor carefully. At least every other time she's parked there, she's seen a rat, some as big as a Jack Russell.

6:20

The professor greets everyone with a smile and a good luck wish. Only 15 people, all older, are in the class. He hands out the test and the bluebooks. The first two questions are easy. 

What is she doing? Why is every minute of her day pre-programmed? When was the last time she ate Breakfast with her husband and kids. He works in IT from their home. When will she have time to decorate for Christmas? What were Phil's feelings the last few weeks? The last few minutes before he kicked the chair out from under him?

Her pen stops. Does she really want to go from law to the madness of the corporate life her friends tell her about, that is they tell her when they find a half an hour for a glass of wine?

She puts her pen down, gathers up the test paper and blue book and gives it to the professor. He's kinda cute, middle aged, with a five o'clock wantabe beard. His eyes look as if a bit of the sky on a wonderful day stole the blue. She'd never really noticed.

"Finished?" he asks.

"Oh yes," she said. 

Checking for rats and seeing none, she gets into her car and wonders while she'll her husband about her quitting grad school. What will she say in her resignation letter to her law firm? Should she make pancakes for tomorrow morning's breakfast.

visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com

FlashNano2024 No. 24 - Athena

 

"Are you sure you want to do this, Sis?" Minerva asked Athena, her Greek counterpart. Athena was about to give a speech to the Convocation of Gods and Goddesses. The first was held in the 18th Century B.C. Then it was just the Greek Gods but the Roman Gods eventually joined. 

Athena finished curling her hair then looked up from the mirror where she was primping. "We have abdicated our responsibilities long enough and look where those stupid humans have taken the world."

She left the dressing room. As soon as Zeus, her father from whose head she'd sprung, introduced her she walked onto the stage.

"Thank you for calling me your beautiful daughter," she said, climbing the podium. She was always nervous before a speech. Her method of calming her nerves was to find friendly faces in the audience.

There was Frig and although she couldn't stand the bitch, she did admire her for taking credit for the name Friday in the English language.

Even if the Welch gods and goddesses were late in joining the convocations, Olwen was as shiny a sun goddess as any of them, except perhaps Istanu, the Hittite Goddess and sometimes God. She didn't see him/her in the audience. Oh, those silly humans making such a thing about transgender.

She wished she could see Thor, the drop dead handsome German God. One of her regrets Thor never looked upon her as a woman.

Calmed, she began her speech.

"Gods and Goddesses, welcome to this historic convocation, although we've said that every convocation, this year it is more so.

"We've had other bad years on this planet: volcanoes, plagues, wars, endless wars and even if I'm known as a war goddess, I'm also known as a peace goddess. There are too many senseless wars with weapons beyond even a deity imagination. A stone, a cross bow is nothing compared to a nuke, but destructive to those damaged.

The climate is in crisis and stupid man is doing nothing, well not nothing, but not enough to stop. Silly humans think money, paper, metal whatever more important then clean air and water. They are destroying the seasons, the creatures, the plants we worked so hard to create.

Meanwhile monotheistic religions are once again causing havoc, although mainly the religion is the excuse to commit mayhem to gain power.

We must take control. Our long holiday is over. 

In your Convocation Booklet are a number of committees. I want each of you to join a minimum of one and no more than three to come up with plans to take back the planet.

Our goal will be to return life to what is was well before the City States, where people can live in harmony. Some of you will have to begin working hard, but you have had centuries of play time.

You will also see a pledge, where you promise you won't let petty rivalities or power struggles to win out over the only two important questions that must be answered Yes I Will:

1. Is this good for the planet?
2. Is this good for the people?

With that she walked off the stage. At first there was silence. Then there was so loud an applause and cheering, the Convovation Center shook.

Back stage Minerva and Athena high-fived.

Visit: https://dlnelsonwriter.com

 

FlashNano2024 No 23. The train

I'll never make it in time." Olivia looked at her watch then at the traffic caused by an accident from her perch in the front of the bus.

"Can you let me out?" she asked the bus driver. He said no until she groveled. 

She ran down Rue Chantepoulet, down the stairway, under the train station and up to platform 6, dodging the few people that were there catching the last trains of the night. At the top of the escalator she saw the train pulling out. The overhead board, announcing the stops reading Lausanne, Bern, Zurich, was blurry as she bent over panting.

"Are you allright?" The person asking was an elderly man, wearing a tweed full-length coat and leaning on a cane.

"I...missed...my...train...and..." What she didn't say was she had to be in Zurich for a job interview early in the morning, one so important that it could change her life.

"Look," the man said, "another is coming." Still using his cane he helped her to where the train had stopped, pushing the button to open the doors and helping her up the three stairs.

Olivia collapsed in the first seat still breathing heavily. If today didn't trigger her asthma, nothing would.

As the train pulled out, she noticed two things:

1.  There was no one in the car with her.
2.  Looking out the window the destinations listed on the overhead sign were gone. 

She ran from car to car in economy and first class. No one. No conductor. The door to the driver's cab was locked.

Eleven minutes later the train entered a huge building and came to a stop.

The cab door open. The driver was a man in a CFF uniform. "What are you doing here.

Olivia explained - including about having to be in Zurich in the morning.

"I'm afraid you're going to miss that interview."

Olivia started to cry.

He handed her a handkerchief. "Where do you live?"

"Vesenaz."

"I doubt that you'll get a bus tonight. I live one village over. I'll drop you home."

On the way home, Olivia looked at the driver. As they passed under streetlights, she found him good looking, but her imagination wondered if he would turn into a killer. Stop, she told herself. You read too many mysteries. Instead she wondered if there was anything she could say to the people in Zurich to convince them to give her another chance. Maybe suggest a zoom call.

FlashNano2024 No 22 - building your partner

 

 Prompt: The "Build Your Perfect Partner" kit has arrived and your character opens the box...

“I’ve been to five bridal showers in the past two months, and I haven’t had a date in all that time.” Josie was having Saturday morning coffee with her friends Margo and Anne.

“Tell us about it,” Margo said. She stared at the whipped cream heart on the top of her coffee. “I don’t think I’ll ever find a man for me.”

The three friends from uni were now approaching their 30s. Each of them had three failed relationships. Together they were a support team to hand out tissues, bring the wine and listen whenever their latest attempt at partner-finding ended.

The tearoom only had six tables. The waitress was passing their table.

“Forgive me for barging in, but I couldn’t help but hear. Have you heard of “Design a Man?” the waitress said.

Margo burned her mouth on her espresso. “Design a man?”

“Wait here.” The waitress disappeared into the kitchen but returned quickly with a flyer.

DESIGN A MAN

Ladies, are you tired of all

those useless dates?Do you

have a dream man? Our

DESIGN A MAN

Kit, uses all the latest AI

Techniques. Want blond

hair? Brown hair? You can

have the look you want.

Even better, give him the

characteristics you want?

$499, money back guarantee.

Margo put the url into her phone. Hey, it says you can use one package five times. We could pool our cash and have a Design A Man party.

Their Design a Man package was delivered to Josie’s the following week. The three friends decided on a Saturday night to test it out.

“What shall we wear?” Three women staying home on a Saturday night had overtones of a PJ party.

Josie made sure that the apartment lights were low, but there were plenty of candles.

Margo read the directions. “There’s the prototype for a man in each of the cannisters.”

Each woman opened a cannister. Three naked flat male forms rushed out with a hiss and lay on the floor.

“Now we have to decorate them.” Margo hunted for the coloring set. Soon, the men forms had hair, one had a beard. Anne’s future man had bushy eyebrows. “I always liked bushy eyebrows.”

“Now comes the tricky part. It’s where we add the personality and qualities.” She picked up a small machine with wires.

The women each read the list, the very long list: it included things like kindness, athletic, a reader, good to his mother, knowledge equivalent to a degree with a subcategory of different fields. Altogether there were over 200 items, each woman chose the 50 most important to her, and also the limit allowed.

Josie was an IT specialist and she made sure that the male form attachments to the machine followed the decorations exactly.

One by one, the men came to life. It took them almost an hour to start moving and talking. They took the names David, Seth and Jason. 

While the men were developing, the three women dressed in their best clothes, the kind that set off their figures.

They men waited while the women went out and bought them clothes so they could all go out to a nice restaurant and discuss what brought them there and what their futures would be.