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.
De Mon Esprit! 
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.