Tag Archives: flash fiction

I collect my micro musings in a document with the aim of publishing a book of poetry (I’ve seen a review of a book of 140 twitter fictions so why not a book of micropoetry?)

But I shall share the more recent ones with you here.

Enjoy.

Which one(s) did you like best? Why?

First Date

an open packet of plain chips
(you prefer Salt and Vinegar)
we scrabble for the scraps
and lick the grease
from our fingers

Irony

In an act of irony
I draw trees on paper
And stick them
On my wall
An ecological conundrum
Where I can’t see
The forest for the trees

Unravelling and Resonating

The unravelling of each other
Pulling at threads of fault
Leaves only a mirror
To reflect and resonate
Our own insecurities

Trivial Dust

Death makes trivial objects
of us all; dust becoming dust
As I wipe my finger
Along the photo frame
My reflection echoes yours

Conscience

Hamlet declared
Conscience does make
cowards of us all
For we ultimately fear
What holds us back
When it should
Push us forward

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Posted in Ars Poetica, Creativity

Tagged creativity, experimental, flash fiction, microfiction, micropoetry, poetry, slice of life, writers, writing

Superhero Saturday – Flash Fiction

Posted on March 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

Yesterday I was teaching my Year 7s (the first year of high school in Australia) Creative Writing. They are a learning enhanced class which means there are a range of intellectual and learning disabilities.

We were learning the structure of a story, using the primary school method of Orientation, Complication, Events and Resolution (O.C.E.R.). It works for any writer really; it’s the fundamental structure to any scene whether it’s for a short story or a novel.

I gave them an opening line, “I had my costume all planned out; I was going to be a superhero” and after a brief planning session, they were set to work. While they wrote theirs, I plugged my laptop into the data projector and wrote my own. It’s best practice to model what you’re after.

It’s far from perfect but it showed my students what to do.

So here it is for your… pleasure… or interest… or something.

SUPERHERO SATURDAY

I had my costume all planned out; I was going to be a superhero. Sitting on my bed I could see it hanging from the wardrobe door. It was a spectacular outfit: black tights with red lightning bolts down the outside of the legs, a red t-shirt with a black lightning bolt on the front and the bestest cape ever. My Mum made it for me.

I am Super B. I seek to right the wrongs, make this world a safer place, and have doughnuts for afternoon tea.

Once Mum let me outside to play, I put on my costume and hit the streets of our cul-de-sac, ready to be the hero. It was a quiet afternoon; only the neighbour’s dog, Scruffy, was outside the fence so I put him back.

I felt pretty good having done my helpful deed for the day. Standing on the footpath I put my hands on my hips and held my best superhero pose. But there was no wind to make my cape fly out behind me so I felt a bit silly.

Was there no other good deed to do today? Not much of a superhero if you only get to do one good deed.

There was a squeal from up the street and the rattle of plastic trike tyres on the footpath. Mrs Jenkins from Number 96 was yelling as her little Patty went hurtling down the footpath on her runaway tricycle.

Patty’s feet were blurry circles as the pedals span faster and faster, threatening to throw her off. Her tiny mouth formed the biggest “O” I’d ever seen and from it came the loudest scream, enough to scare the cat!

This is my chance, I thought. I can be the hero!

I twirled my cape and ran towards little Patty, before she became patty-cake all over the footpath. Putting my feet in the brace position and crouching down I readied myself for impact. Patty came closer, the screaming louder and louder. She was almost on top of me when I stepped to the side, swung my arm around Patty’s waist and lifted her to safety. The tricycle careened off the footpath and into the gum tree outside my house. I expected the tricycle to burst into flames. But it didn’t.

Mrs Jenkins stopped right in front of me, gasping for air.

“Thank you so much,” she said as Patty jumped into her open arms. “You’re such a hero for saving my little Patty Cake.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” I said.

“Come inside and have a biscuit,” Mrs Jenkins said. “You deserve something for your brave actions.”

“Thank you, Mrs Jenkins,” I said. A superhero always remembers his manners.

Mrs Jenkins fed me choc chip biscuits. She insisted I have two, and on my way out the door, she gave me one more.

Walking home I felt pretty darn good. I wiped the biscuit crumbs from my mouth, I didn’t want Mum to think I’d filled my tummy before dinner, and wondered what adventures Super B might have tomorrow.

I stood in our driveway, struck a superhero pose and thankfully there was a breeze to make my cape billow out. I surveyed the cul-de-sac and knew it was safe. It was good to be a superhero.

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Posted in Creativity, The Writer's Life

Tagged comedy, comic superhero, creativity, fiction, flash fiction, slice of life, writers, writing

Lessons Learned From Post It Note Poetry

Posted on March 1, 2014 | 1 comment

A month of #postitnotepoetry has elapsed and 28 poems have been written and posted.

It started in 2013 when Jodi Cleghorn and I threw out some whimsical ideas with definite boundaries: write a poem to fit on a Post It Note.

It was permission to write; write dreadfully, write with abandon, write without caring what the poetry sounded like. It was permission to be creative and spontaneous; limited and restrictive in a positive way.

And we did it. We gathered adherents and spawned a community. We wrote poems and posted them. And some of them were quite good.

And we did it again this year.

I wrote 28 poems in 29 days (the last week of February was a cracker for me so I missed a day or two, posted late, crammed a few into one day and wrote the last on March 1 after half writing it the night before).

Time to reflect, look into the Navel of Introspection and see if I can find a gem to inspire you. At the very least you’ll have some blue-grey lint to take home.

1. I can write every day (but it wears me down)

Some writers pursue the notion that they must write every day. It is an adage recounted by many writers via social media, and it has validity. I like the Jerry Seinfeld approach of ticking off each day I write or meet a quota, forming an unbroken chain.

But it doesn’t work for me. My day job and other commitments do not allow an unbroken chain. I prefer to work in short bursts rather than long periods of focused attention.

Every creative person has their own cycles of inspiration, creation, recreation, restoration, production. Rinse and repeat.

Find your own rhythm and know your cycles.

2. I can think of a new idea every day (but some need more time to develop)

Finding a new idea each day was in turns easy and difficult. It was in the news, something I read, an emotional response to a situation, daily chores or activities.

The execution of the idea was also in turns easy and difficult. The easy idea was sometimes difficult to write while the difficult idea sometimes can easy in the writing.

No method, often madness; always an idea.

Exhaustion, physical and mental, made developing an idea hard. Some ideas needed more time for composting (what I mean when an ideas sits in the back of your head for a while). For example, the last poem, Frankenstein’s Classroom, needed more time for refinement.

However, that runs contrary to the spirit of Post It Note Poetry.

Pushing an idea that is not fully formed may result in a piece of work that is substandard and editing will only highlight its weaknesses. Letting an idea form over time may mean the editing is easier. Your mileage may vary.

There are plenty of ideas out there for you to catch. Know your methods for trapping them in the pages of your notebook (physical or digital).

3. It’s a whole lot of fun to do (but it detracts from my main purpose)

Creativity is meant to be fun; that was the point initially. There is fun in the hunting down of ideas, capturing the thoughts and emotional response in words, and satisfaction in the completion.

And in doing something fun, I have found a new appreciation for poetry and I like writing it. I like the framework and boundaries a Post It Note provides, similar to the framework and limitations on twitter where I also post short poetry.

However, focused for a month on writing poetry has taken me away from my main purpose of writing my novella. The timing of #postitnotepoetry coincides with the beginning of the school year (I am a high school English teacher) and it is something short I can do during the busyness of the opening of the school year.

I want to return to my novella, which is happily composting in the back of my head while I make updated notes in my notebook. I’m also in the last stages of edits for my collaborative novel.

The brevity of Post It Note Poetry is something I will continue to do throughout the year because I believe in developing my creativity; I am undecided if I will return in 2015 for the trifecta.

Have fun with your creative acts.

That’s it from me for #postitnotepoetry 2014.

Time to buy shares in the company that makes Post It Notes or see if I can get a sponsorship from them and turn it all into a book deal.

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Posted in Creativity, Post It Note Poetry, The Writer's Life

Tagged creativity, experimental, fiction, flash fiction, just because of thoughtfulness, microfiction, poetry, post it note, post it note poetry, writers, writing

10 Fingers To Understand Silence Is Not An Absolute – Twitfic

Posted on February 21, 2014 | 2 comments

10 Fingers To Understand Silence Is Not An Absolute

I.
He lived without a singular sense. His hands felt sounds at his throat, resonating in his head; a voice muted because it had no comparison.

II.
He voiced his language, clumsy at first, in the intricate dance of his fingers. Frustration was best countered with an upright middle finger.

III.
He smiled at her fingers speaking like a 3 year old: focused, exaggerated movements and incorrect spelling. No need to shout, he jokingly chided.

IV.
A text flickered on her screen.
“Take me to a concert. Bring me some ear plugs?”
Between the speaker and sub-woofer he found the sweet spot.

V.
The argument gesticulated angrily. She turned her back to silence. His hand reached to her shoulder, cold as it was, to apologise.

VI.
He uncrumpled the letter, like peeling a mandarin, to devour the words written he had spat out the night before. A hand to speak words when no voice attended.

VII.
Silence has layers, nuances, light and shadow, he said. It’s not an absolute.
Why are you silent with me? she asked. Will you listen?
She leaned in and kissed him.

Over the time I’ve been writing twitter fiction, I have come to appreciate the brevity of the form, limited as it is to 140 characters. It is, in essence, to capture a breath of moment, holding it for a little while and expecting the release and exhalation.

I like the number seven, echoing The Seven Ages of Man by Jacques in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” Thus my collections of twitfic are anthologies focused on a theme or have a narrative thread.

Playing with form allows me to link these brief pieces into something resembling a music video. Quick, short edits, compiled into a unified whole to tell a bigger picture.

Coupled with Post It Note Poetry, another short form of writing I enjoy, I can post these experimental works here while I work on my current novella and put my novel through final edits.

I have considered compiling my Twitfic collections into a singular text, as well as collating my Post It Note Poetry into an anthology. Would anyone be interested?

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Posted in Short Stories

Tagged creativity, experimental, fiction, flash fiction, Friday flash, micro-fiction, microfiction, short story, slice of life, writers, writing