December 24th, 2010 §
Hey, it’s a while since I posted one of these, right? Not since April ’09. Damn, how has it been so long.
So I was invited to submit a piece of flash fiction for a Christmas-themed issue of a dark fiction e-zine. The only real requirement was that it have a “ghostly” theme and the SF piece that crawled out of my brain doesn’t meet that requirement by most definitions of ghostly. This may be why the piece wasn’t accepted for publication. Regardless, I enjoyed writing it as I’ve written so little fiction in the past few years. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Merry Winterval, and fuck you Eric Pickles!
.
» Read the rest of this entry «
December 17th, 2009 §
Esteemed UK indie publisher TTA Press have been getting into the festive spirit with a flash fiction advent calendar on their blog. I was away at the 10 year anniversary ATP so unfortunately I missed the day when one of my stories went up. Chances are regular readers of NFI will have seen ‘Some Kind Of Superhero’ before, but if you haven’t why not give it a read? I can guarantee you will like it more than the shitty, powdery chocolate you get in a Tesco’s advent calendar.
April 17th, 2009 §
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a piece of Friday flash fiction. I hope to post another entry later in the day explaining why. For the time being, here is another story that is technically too long to be flash, clocking in at 1,171 words.
.
FUNERAL
» Read the rest of this entry «
March 14th, 2009 §
Over the past week I published four pieces of flash fiction. The intention was to catch up on all the weeks I’ve missed so far this year. I’m still one short so I’ll be playing catch-up again soon, but I’m pretty pleased that I managed to find the time to devise, write and post four short stories. There are hits and misses but overall I’m happy with them, and as always I’d love to hear your feedback if you’ve got something to say. Be as harsh or as effusively praising as you like: it’s a learning experience.
The stories are Wanderlust, Heralded By Iron, Punk’s Not Dead and Colours Move.
Thanks for reading!
March 13th, 2009 §
I made it to Friday, and managed four pieces of flash fiction over the course of the week. Not quite five but it’s a decent showing. You’ll have to imagine me saying that sardonically and throwing pointed looks at some of my fellow flash slacktioneers.
Today’s story is fairly lightweight, I’m afraid, as I’m a bit idea’d out after a busy week and managing to fling myself off my bike yesterday (thus, I feel like I’ve been beaten up… by tarmac).
The title is shamelessly stolen from the excellent Fuck Buttons.
.
Colours Move
» Read the rest of this entry «
March 12th, 2009 §
What was that about the author meeting his own deadlines?
Yeah, I’m pretty much made of fail. Oh well. Here’s today’s flash fiction. This one’s about punk rock, which will no doubt impress my regular readers as it’s a subject which I so rarely touch upon. The soundtrack for this one is (Shut) Up the Punx!!!
If you missed ‘em earlier in the week, here’s Wanderlust and here’s Heralded By Iron.
.
PUNK’S NOT DEAD
» Read the rest of this entry «
March 10th, 2009 §
My thrilling week of daily flash fiction continues apace! Well, a second pace at least. If you missed Monday’s story, you can read ‘Wanderlust’ here.
Today’s flashfic is mostly an attempt to refresh my memory and to evoke a certain atmosphere or sense of place. It’s written in the same setting as, although it’s not contemporaneous with, a long story I wrote several years ago titled ‘Entropy in the Clockwork City’. That story has been sitting at first draft stage for some time and I keep meaning to return to it. It would be nice to get it polished up and try for publication. It’s been a while since I collected a rejection slip, after all.
I hope you find something to enjoy in this short piece.
.
Heralded By Iron
» Read the rest of this entry «
March 9th, 2009 §
What’s this? Flash fiction on a Monday? This doesn’t seem right, not right at all.
But perhaps it represents an act of contrition. Perhaps the author has been lax, of late, has failed to write or post any fiction to this blog for some time. Shall we say four weeks? I believe we shall.
And perhaps the form that this act of contrition will take is the posting of a piece of flash fiction every day of this coming week, up to and including the now-traditional Friday, thereby restoring the karmic, fictitious balance for 2009.
Perhaps the level of quality demanded of the form this act takes may drop as a result of such pressures, but certainly the spirit of experimentation, the desire to push the authorial self, is as it should be in the established tradition of Friday flash fiction.
We shall see.
We shall see if the author can meet his own deadlines, yes?
.
» Read the rest of this entry «
February 6th, 2009 §
Here’s this week’s F3, which is another music-based rather than genre story. I’m not happy with this one but I’m not going to have any time to rewrite it or write an alternative piece, and I’m determined to stick to publishing one story a week. Some of my thoughts in the comments – I wouldn’t recommend reading those until you’ve read the story, of course.
.
Breaking the Circle
» Read the rest of this entry «
February 1st, 2009 §
Two days late is still better than never.
.
THE TIME BEFORE I TURN
» Read the rest of this entry «