I think almost everyone who has any bent for words writes when they’re in high school. Some of it’s good, some of it is hopeless self-pitying teenage blather (raises hand sheepishly — ‘yes, your Honor, I’m guilty of that!’). I did. I wrote poems, mostly, with the occasional short story and even, in 8th grade, I wrote a Mary Sue novella about a high school girl who helps an undercover cop expose a drug ring in her high school. (I can only plead a bad case of “Starsky and Hutch” and “Adam 12″ and all those 70s cop shows).
About 3 years ago, I started writing again. Initially, it was fanfiction for the 1960s series Combat! Then I stumbled on a new (to me) thing called “Flash Fiction”. That’s the idea that you can write an entire story in 1000 words or less. This was followed by the discovery of a hashtag (I believe I can give Tony Noland credit for pointing it out to me) on Twitter called “#FridayFlash”. People write flash fic and post it on their blogs. Then they post tweets about it (and now can also publicize it on the eponymous Facebook group). I enjoyed this a lot — I’m something of a minimalist when it comes to writing and the very short form suited me.
Jon Strother, who started the whole megillah of #FridayFlash, collected a number of the best of the stories that are posted back a couple of years ago. It was enough of a success that he’s done it again, with the help of Jody Cleghorn, another member of the club, and has produced a new book called Best of Friday Flash 2. I’m pleased and honored to say they found my story Boarding Call worthy of inclusion alongside some very fine writers whose work I have enjoyed reading over the past couple of years.
You can find the book here, if you’d like to order it: Best of Friday Flash 2. I hope you will, not only for me, but for all us authors who are finding our voices and sharing our work out here. It can be hard to be heard — the Internet has so many voices — but I know the people here who contributed their work deserve the effort. Let the good work continue.
Congratulations on being in a “real book” Janet! That’s exactly how I feel, too. Can hardly wait to read Boarding Call!
Excellent post, and congratulatins on your first publication! Best of Friday Flash (volume one) was my first book publication also. It’s truly a wonderful collection and community!
The panel of judges selected some really terrific stories for Jon, Rachel and me to edit. Yours has a firm place among them! Congratulations and welcome to the Best of Friday Flash!
Tony, Cathy and Cathy!
Thanks so very much for your kind words. You’ve either inspired me directly, encouraged me or otherwise engaged me to keep on writing. I have to tell you all that this has helped me through some really rough times in my life and you (along with a lot of other people, a few of whom are Maria, Icy, John, Daniel, etc. — not leaving anyone else out for any other reason other than my occasionally not wonderful memory) helped me through it, usually without even knowing. Thank you all.