Flash Fiction: Cat

This week’s flash fic­tion must be in text form and quite brief, I’m afraid. The pod­cast takes a while to do and I’d like to con­cen­trate on the cur­rent novel. If you’re sub­scribed to the pod­cast, then (i) why not let me know? and (ii) don’t worry, the hiatus should be brief.

This week’s flash, called ‘Cat’, inspired by my adop­ted ger­bil:

The kit­chen sink has not been cleaned, though the dishes are regi­men­ted: drip­ping, the rank and file wait on a plastic slope. The bin is full. Newer items of rub­bish have been placed next to it with a curi­ous sense of the neat. A left shoe is on the doormat. It was not delivered. Toe-nail clip­pings sea­son the lid of the down­stairs loo. There is a sci­ence fic­tion magazine — Interzone — open on the low­est riser of the stairs. A cat, Mandy, stops on the Interzone to wash her face. She has not been fed but she has so far main­tained her indif­fer­ence. She can keep her­self neat too. There is a cool­ing body in the liv­ing room, lack­ing a left shoe. Mandy settles on the chest for a second night. She might see some­thing in the shad­ows as they stretch and darken. She might not.

Charlie’s Diary: Bang, Bucks, and Delivery in Recompense

Charles Stross has pos­ted some typ­ic­ally thought­ful com­ments on the nature of length in fic­tion. What, exactly, is a short story and how does it dif­fer from a novel? Can a novel itself be a chapter?

It’s a tru­ism of the writ­ing busi­ness that short stor­ies are not like nov­els. There are any num­ber of nov­el­ists who simply can’t work effect­ively in the cramped space of a short story; and there are many writers for whom the short form is their nat­ural métier and the wide vis­tas of a novel seem impossible to fill, an invit­a­tion to agoraphobia.

This is some­thing I think about as I write the third book in a ‘uni­verse’ that I’ve put together as I go along. I don’t really have plot threads con­nect­ing the books, though some char­ac­ters overlap.

Also of interest are some of Mr Stross’s com­ments on the con­ven­tion behind the nomen­clature of stor­ies. For me, flash fic­tion is about 100 words in length, which is why my fic­tion flash pod­cast is about a minute in length, on aver­age. But what do I know?

(Via Charlie’s diary.)

Fiction Flash

This week’s fic­tion flash audio pod­cast has been pos­ted. It’s a story by Neil Ayres (who has a co-blog with Alia Whiteley).
Read more →

Friday Flash Fiction

Today’s audio instal­ment is up over at http://ianhocking.com/Fiction_Flash/Fiction_Flash/Fiction_Flash.html.

Flash fiction

Question: Is flash fic­tion an art form in itself, or an excuse to write for about thirty seconds, look chal­len­gingly at the cat and say, “And”? Who knows. But flash fic­tion — also known as sud­den fic­tion, Kato-from-the-cupboard prose, and mashed stanza — has a pecu­liar appeal. It’s short; sharp. Very occa­sion­ally shocking.

You’ll find many blog­gers dab­bling with flash fic­tion. A brief glance at my news­reader app reveals sci­ffy author Gareth D Jones, Managing Director of the Velcro City Tourist Board Paul Raven, and sci­ffy author Gareth L Powell, all of whom are blog­ging flash fic­tion on Fridays.

Readers of this blog — hey, Dad — will be aware that I’ve ven­tured into the flash fic­tion before. See Stone Sun, for example.

But, Saturday morn­ing, when I was read­ing the Guardian Weekend, I noticed sev­eral ‘new media’ types on the cover (pod­casters, mostly, includ­ing Alex Albrecht.) I men­tioned to my girl­friend how it’s pos­sible now to pro­duce professional(ish) qual­ity audio and video without big-money back­ing. I must have soun­ded rather pom­pous and know­ing, because she said, “Well, why don’t you do one?”

I blinked once.

Twice.

And here it is, m’readers. My FICTION FLASH. As a cor­res­pond­ent of mine, TheDudeAbides, noted, FICTION FLASH has a Twitter–like feel to it, and I’m happy about that.

FICTION FLASH will be released every Friday even­ing (GMT). It has an iTunes ‘expli­cit’ tag because of the occa­sional strong lan­guage. It will tend not to be sci­ence fic­tion; for some reason I’m not able to fathom, my short fic­tion seems to be of the non-genre sort. Episodes should be about one minute in length. It might be fun to have some guest flash fic­tion­ers — if you’re inter­ested, let me know.

Click here to go to the FICTION FLASH website.

Click here to open FICTION FLASH in iTunes

Click here to sub­scribe in your own RSS reader.

Fiction flash: Mix tape

There is an ele­ment of cap­ture and pre­ser­va­tion in the act of cre­at­ing a mix tape for a friend. ___ is a poet. He under­stands met­ric; blends new words as hues from the primes; writes with a wooden found­a­tion pen. It is sum­mer as he swaps out the second cas­sette. James Brown for The Kinks. It is sum­mer in his poems too. It is…it is as his left hand makes the chords shapes of Lola that he decides to take his car and drive to the golf course, drive across the golf course, rip­ping the fuck from the grass of the golf course, and launch off the cliff and into the sea. But ___ is a poet. There is, first, the last song of the mix tape.

Flash Fiction: Stone Sun

It is all for a right turn of the head, mid-field, and there is the sun­set. The mud explodes from foot to foot, from foot to foot, and the now-gone sun makes a stain. My air­less mouth hangs in shock. My hands flop and a stone trips me back to last Friday, dis­cuss­ing the hard prob­lems of con­scious­ness with some stu­dents. Finally: a bird. What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to run and run?

Fiction flash: The Pilgrim

His sad­ness is my sad­ness; this man in the sub­way with his back against the tiles and a Russian-looking cap open by his crossed ankles. His eyes are hard on the cap. He might be expect­ing magic. I won­der, passing, giv­ing up none of my money, whether his stare is an answer to com­ing police ques­tions about mov­ing on. How has the young man etched him­self into this routine? Are the pen­nies in the cap his? Do the tiles at his back remem­ber him when he is moved on? The sub­way tells the Canterbury Tales in car­toon­ish, life-sized fig­ures. A knight; a baker; a wife.