Snow

Recently I did my first flash fiction for Lascaux Flash. It was a lot of fun, and I got to read some amazing stories. 

The cool thing with flash fiction is the constraints - you are given a tiny time period and, in this case, only 250 words to create a story. That is really hard to do. If you have an extra hour, why not give it a try? It is a great writing exercise, and you'll find that it is very challenging to create something that is so short and yet still tells a story.

We were given a visual prompt, which you can see here. I immediately thought of mirrors, and I had an idea knocking about in the back of my mind already. Once I saw the prompt, I couldn't wait to get started.

Here is my attempt, for what it is worth,and I must caution you that it is for the 18+ age group.

Snow

I felt Snow’s breath on my neck after class. “Prince is mine,” she breathed. “Watch your ass.” I turned to say something, but she was already in motion, followed by her fangirls. Or boys - it was hard to tell.

Apples. I had to research apples for a science project. Besides, the library would be a safe place. AC splintered on my cheeks as I sat at a table and opened a book.

Apple trees take five years to produce their first fruit.

Another breath on my neck, but it was warm and male. “Hey,” Prince said. I concentrated on the page in front of me as he sat in the chair across from me.

The science of apple-growing is called pomology.

His foot nudged mine. I closed my notebook. Prince looked up and started to say something. I ignored him.

There was a bathroom in the far corner of the library. The air was even colder in there. I entered the last stall, opened my purse, and took it out. The mirror.

Apples belong to the rose family.

The baggie was small and half-filled with a white powder. I cut out two lines, rolled up a twenty, and snorted.

My own face looked back at me, dusted with snow. “Get rid of her,” the girl in the mirror whispered.

The rush hit me, and I dropped the mirror on the floor. Dark blood streaked down my skin when the silver glass shattered. Red on white. Snow.

The Age of Miracles

I read Karen Thompson Walker's book, The Age of Miracles, while I was away on vacation last week. Once I started reading, it was really hard to stop. I love apocalyptic books, and this one is so grounded in reality - sixth grade reality - that it makes the horror of what is happening much more compelling. 

Julia is eleven, an age that is puts her between two worlds - childhood and adolescence. She worries about her friendships, longs after Seth, a boy at the bustop, and is tortured by a bully. These very real fears and longings are played against the backdrop of a world that has started to unwind. For some reason, Earth's rotation begins to slow down, so that nights gain thirty minutes and days last for forty hours. 

There are many reactions: some people are convinced that it is the end of the world and gather in religious sects, such as Julia's best friend, Hanna. Others insist on following "clock time" - getting up in the dark, sticking to a 24 hour schedule. Another sect wants to follow new time - staying in during the dark, waking at the strange new dawn. The two groups clash, as humans always seem to do, and one is driven off to the desert to live their new schedule.

The birds begin to die. Crops fail. The sun burns with a new intensity.

And Julia is changed by all of this, but her changing relationships matter more. Her parents begin to grow distant to each other. Hanna moves away with her family. And her proximity to Seth becomes more intense - in many different ways.

Image courtesy of Housatonic Museum of Art

Walker writes with a slow style that mirrors the new revolutions of the planet. Don't think that means that there is any lack of excitement, however. I was sucked in from the start, wanting to find out more about Seth and what would happen to Julia. 

She also continually surprised me, with new concepts and ways of describing unimaginable events. For example:

Later, I would come to think of those first days as the time when we learned as a species that we had worried over the wrong things; the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, West Nile and the swine flu and killer bees. But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

And, on the micro scale of the revolutions within Julia's emotions, Walker is just as powerful:

"It's not fair to your mom," he aid. "I hate things that aren't fair."
I nodded. "Me, too."
We said nothing else, but the secret buzzed between us. It felt good to have told. It felt good to be known by this boy. 

I loved the story on both levels: the story of a young girl, and the sci fi nature of the background. I highly recommend this book.

The Blah Cycle

Here's what happens: you are moving along, doing things the way they should be done (like blogging) when all of a sudden life demands that you not blog (or other stuff) for a while.

So, fine. Except, when you have to get back to it (or, as in this case, when I have to get back to it) you discover that you're in the Blah Cycle. 

Because, how do you come crawling back? How do you admit, "Yeah, I'm a loser. It's just as I thought - and all my past accomplishments have been washed away by a week of sins."

So you put it off for another day. Which only makes the Blah Cycle stronger and more vicious, do you see.

As I come crawling back to my blog, covered in sin and abject shame for not posting for over a week, I am trying to come up with ways to break the Blah Cycle:

1. I could remind myself that I owe my readers something much better and that I have to - HAVE TO - get out of the doldrums. That seems to make the Blah Cycle stronger, though.

2. I can hide all my other stuff to do, like laundry and dishes and reading one last post on Facebook.

3. I can promise myself wine or chocolate if I post today.

Hey! That one worked!

I'll be back tomorrow with a review of The Age of Miracles, a book I finished at 2 AM during Blah Cycle week. And do stick around - I have a HUGE giveaway planned for October and November. We're talking signed print copies and bling and Kindles.  Yupper!

Free steampunk bling will break the Blahs anyday.