I’m thrilled it’s Friday once again. Time for a new flash fiction episode for Friday Fictioneers featuring Alice, her best friend, Bill, and her parents Marsha and Kevin.
Kevin has been in serious trouble for the last three weeks, and now he’s missing…
This week’s five words are role, shape, quiet, spirit and youth. Join in and/or read the other entries. Synonym substitution is allowed, so I substituted ‘role’ for ‘task’.
“What Pegman saw” is a weekly flash fiction challenge prompt inspired by google maps, using the 360 degree view of the location provided. Bloggers write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page, from where you can also get the Inlinkz code.
I’ve been meaning to take part for some time. I checked today’s prompt and started writing my story at once. Here it is! Its’s a little sentimental, but that’s where the image took me.
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If Only, Jack
I peered over Marian’s shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
“Sambor Prei Kuk Temple,” she said, her eyes fixed on the screen.
“Shall we go there?”
“We’re already there, can’t you see?” She smiled and nodded at the image. “We’re walking along the paths, looking up to the grey sky through the leaves of the tall trees.”
I stared at the image. “Can we smell the moss growing on the Temple, or stroke the time weathered walls, or go inside?”
Her eyes shone. “You know we can’t.”
I squeezed her frail hand. “I’ll look it up on the Internet. We can afford it.”
My thumb wiped the tear sliding down her cheek. “In summer, your hair will have grown back and we’ll say a thank you prayer inside the Temple.”
“Next summer,” she whispered mesmerised by the image and turned to me. “If only, Jack.”
I’m thrilled to be back with a new flash fiction episode for Friday Fictioneers featuring Alice and her best friend, Bill, and her parents Marsha and Kevin. Kevin has been in serious trouble for the last two weeks, and matters are getting worse.
This week’s prompt has inspired me to write a romantic tale. So far, we’ve seen Billy and Alice as inseparable, childhood friends. This week we’ll be looking at how their relationship might develop.
Leading on from last week’s story, in which Alice’s parents were in some sort of trouble, Alice will need Billy, now Bill’s, help and support.
The smell of toast and coffee wafted up the stairs and into Bill’s guest room, where I lay, eyes squeezed shut, holding back my tears, hoping my parents would return.
Downstairs, Bill’s mum was laying the table. He stood by her side, turned and warmed my heart with his smile.
When had my skinny, playful, childhood friend become the anchor which held my world together?
‘Breakfast’s ready,’ he said, placing a piece of toast on my plate, and this time, my tears flowed.
‘We’re in this together, Alice,’ he whispered and kissed my temple.
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Thank you for reading and I hope you’re having a great weekend❤
I’m thrilled to be with you yet again with my Friday Fictioneers story of Alice Pendragon and her adventures, thanks to the photo prompts and inspiration provided by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields at Friday Fictioneers. Check out this weekly challenge here.
This week I’ve written a suspenseful flash. Alice’s father, Kevin, seems to be in trouble. What’s the problem? Where is he? Can Alice and her mother help him? Will they arrive on time?
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The Deserted Path
Our car bumped along the deserted path. ‘Are you sure this is the right way?’
My mother nodded, her lips pursed and her eyes glued to the road.
Above us, dark, heavy clouds loomed as the sun’s last pink-tinged rays faded into the horizon.
‘Will we make it on time?’ I asked. She didn’t answer.
The flash drive he had asked me to bring was hidden in my pocket.
‘What’s daddy doing here?’
A drop slid down her cheek, splashing on the hand that was grabbing the steering wheel with all her might.
The IWSG is a fabulous site for authors to share and encourage ech other by expressing doubts and concerns and looking for advice and guidance in our writing life. It’s a safe haven and meeting place for insecure writers of all kinds!
The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day when we post our thoughts on our own blogs. Check it out and join in here!
Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG
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I’m taking part by answering this week’s optional Question:
Have you ever surprised yourself with your writing? (For example, by trying a new genre you didn’t think you’d be comfortable in?)
I surprise myself every time I pick up my pen, because I (almost) always jot down my ideas on paper before I sit down to the ‘real’ work of giving shape to my untidy notes on my laptop.
I always carry a pen and notebook, ready to capture the idea on the spur of the moment, before it escapes forever… Many of those ideas are never transformed into complete stories, although they may become part of a story. I use the same notebook until all the pages have been used up, which usually takes about a month, and I keep them at hand, just in case, for years.
This was sitting on a plane, but my favourite place to write is in the car, when I’m not driving!
I’ve written three historical novels and have started a fourth, but my heart isn’t in this fourth novel, at least not yet, so it’s resting on my shelf for the time being, because I wanted to write something different, but I haven’t known what for a long time.
I felt lost, not knowing what kind of novel I wanted to write. I kept filling notebooks full of ideas which never came to fruition. It wasn’t writer’s block, because I had plenty of random creative ideas, but I felt I lacked purpose. I needed to find a project that would absorb all my creative thoughts and energy. I was getting worried. Although there were many ideas, not one pulled me obsessively, which is what I need to immerse myself in a novel completely.
It has taken me about a year to feel overwhelmed by a new project, but it has finally happened, when I least expected it, on a long car journey, as co-pilot, the seed of an idea dropped and flourished. When I arrived, I had a rough outline, main characters, setting, and a sense that ‘this was it at last’.
Throughout the following month of August, at a holiday flat by the sea, the plot grew and the characters came to life. It’s not a historical novel and it’s not a family saga. It’s a type of novel I never thought I’d write. A contemporary, romantic thriller simmered for 30 days, in a whole notebook of ideas. I’m back home now, and the proper, chapter by chapter outline is almost complete.
I’m a plotter, mostly, although I enjoy improvising, too. I love it when a character I hadn’t planned surprises me by popping into my mind and taking over, or when a plot twist happens unexpectedly as my characters are thinking or speaking. I can deal with these surprising characters and events and rework my original plan. On the other hand, I find it impossible to write without a destination, and that’s where plotting helps me focus.
I welcome surprises as a writer. I never know when or how a creative idea will take root in my mind, and I love the challenge of continued surprises as the novel unfolds.
Antonio Machado (1875 – 1939), drawing by Leandro Oroz Lacalle (1883 – 1933)
A famous Spanish poet, Antonio Machado (1975-1939), wrote, “Traveler, there is no road; you make your path as you walk.” I agree with Machado’s idea, but I also like to know where my destination lies.
Today on #TuesdayBookBlog I’m reviewing The Missing Wife,suspenseful, contemporary women’s fiction by Sheila O’Flanagan.
My Review
One day, insecure and shy Imogen vanishes into thin air without a trace. Everyone is shocked, especially her doting husband. Nobody knows where she is or why she has gone, but Imogen has a plan. As the novel unfolds, we gradually discover why she left and where she’s going.
Imogen embarks on a journey of self-discovery and liberation. I don’t want to include spoilers, so I’ll just say it was easy to sympathise with Imogen’s need to break away and go back to understand her past searching for answers to her present predicament and as a way towards her future. Drama unfolds as she finds out the truth about her past and starts to live a new life, but not everyone is willing to let her move on.
Various family dramas unfold and eventually collide in the end when Imogen will have to decide who she is and where she wants to be, and prove to herself that she’s strong enough and ready to move forward on her own.
I enjoyed reading about Imogen’s geographical and emotional journey of self discovery. In spite of some very unpleasant events and circumstances occurring throughout her life, on the whole it was a feel-good read and an optimistic take on a very dark family drama.
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