writing advice

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.

Jamie put her heart into today’s prompt, which is to use the following five words in your story: beat, craft, pass, undermine, woman.  Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!

“Not sure, but I think we can get five dollars a piece for ‘em,” Millie said, sucking her finger where it had touched the end of the glue gun.

“Gettin’ a blister?” Cora’s face was scrunched up the way it always did when she was worried.

“She’ll be alright,” I said. “You just put your head down and keep on workin’. These bows ain’t gonna put themselves together.”

But it was no use—Millie’s injury apparently warrented further inspection, and, as a result, a trip to the kitchen for a bit of aloe.

As the girls scurried off to do that, I heard the crunch of feet on gravel and looked up to see Mr. Frank coming up the drive. My insides made moaning protestations I could feel in my muscles and reflexively I gripped the staple gun I was holding a bit harder than I meant to, but I kept working and managed to keep my face stony as I greeted him.

“Fine day we’re having,” he said, looping his thumbs through the loops of his levis and turning to look up at the sky, as though I had asked him to produce a personalized weather report. I thought about telling him he ought to remove his aviators and get a real and right look at the beautiful sky but then decided not to bother. My staple gun misfired and I suppressed the urge to curse or to even make like I’d intended for things to go otherwise, instead casually setting down the gun and picking up the glue gun the girls had left behind.

My heart gave a bit of a panicked flutter as the girls came to mind but they’d retreated into the safety of the house and so, again, I remained passive, even as Mr. Frank came to the table where I worked and picked up the staple gun. I didn’t like having him so close to me, close enough I could tell his wife cared to spend enough of his hard earned money to buy the fancy fabric softener, close enough to smell the pipe tobacco he kept rolled and tucked into the chest pocket of his flannel.

I wished I could tell him to leave.

“Mommy, do we have any bandaids?” It was Cora’s voice. The two angel faces peered out at me from the slice in the screen I’d been meaning to replace. My eyes instinctively flicked to Mr. Frank, and his eyes were exactly where I knew they’d be, even though he’d tried to shield ‘em with those aviators. He wore the same, sickening smile he always put on whenever he saw my girls. 

“Go on back inside,” I said, as calmly as I could, though my mind was on Mr. Frank, looking for even a singular twitch of a muscle indicating intention to move and calculating who between us could reach that screen door faster, or if the staple gun could be put to some sort of good use after all, should it come to that.

“Where we keep the bandaids, though?” Cora insisted.

“Got some under my sink. In the little bathroom. Go on, now.”

I could breath again when the little faces retreated into the cool darkness of our home.

“Shouldn’t let ‘em undermine your authority like that,” Mr. Frank said, with a cluck of his tongue.

“You’re right,” I said, and made movements like I’d been just about to be wrapping up for the day and go inside. “I think I’ll go on in there and give ‘em a good beating.”

He barked out a dry laugh and swiped a finger across his eye. Stalling. Like I might invite him inside. But I’d put a beating on the table and not a luncheon, so he’d have to go on home to his woman and his coon hound.
I’d won this round.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he said.

I didn’t respond. I just reached up and pulled down hard on the cord to shut the garage door behind him.

That’s all for today!

Jamie Hershberger enjoys writing shorts (short fiction) under the pen name, J. R. Nichols. She is the creator and curator of www.writingshorts.net and the editor of The Writing Shorts Newsletter.  Her flash fiction has won several contests and has been featured in two anthologies.

Jamie Hershberger

writingshorts.net

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here. As always, the ladies of the podcast created some great pieces of writing from this sprint prompt. Today’s Prompt is “Write a scene or a short story using ONLY dialogue!”.  We really enjoyed Tina’s take on the prompt, and we think you will as well! Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!

“Can you tell me a story Grandma?”

“Of course child, but you need to be sure your hands are working while I do. These fish won’t cut themselves.” 

“Yes Grandma, I promise.’

“Good, then hold your ulu properly like I showed you, we don’t want any cut fingers.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“Very good. Now let me think, which story shall I tell you?”

“A new one, that I haven’t heard before!”

“A new one? Well I’m not sure…oh yes, I know of the perfect one. Are you ready?”

“Yes Grandma, and see, I am cutting the fish like you said to.”

“Very good. In a time long ago, before the great catastrophe, there was a baby boy born in a giant city made of strange stone. His family lived in a great tall wigwam so high it touched the sky. “

“How is that possible Grandma, to build a house that tall?”

“The strange stone had magical power not to topple over. Now this boy was a child of promise.”

“What does that mean Grandma? What is a child of promise?” 

“It means he was promised to his mother by God. She prayed and prayed to have a child and promised to dedicate his life to God if he answered her prayer.”

“Oh, so she promised, and God promised too. So he’s was a child of promise!”

“Yes, Yes, very good. The boys father was a man of God…”

“What was his name Grandma?”

“The father’s name was Levi, and the boys name was Joshua. Now Levi was a man of God, and one day while he was praying, God spoke to him.”

“Did he see God?!?”

“No only heard his voice.”

What did it sound like?

“Like a still small voice within his heart.”

“How did he know it was God?”

“Because, he spoke with God often and recognized his voice when he heard it. Now listen, God told Levi to take Joshua away from the great city of strange stone, and take him to a far off land where the rivers ran turquoise and the mountains stood guard.”

“Just like our village…

Christina Cattane is a Christian Indie Writer who writes stories set in Alaska and other exotic locales. She is the author of a novel called ‘Lost in the Land of the Midnight Sun’ which falls in the Christian Dystopian Fiction genre, but she also writes in many other genres. Tina grew up in Alaska, has lived in Saudi Arabia, and currently resides in Michigan with her husband and youngest 2 of 4 kids. Her travels around the world often influence her writing. Visit her website at http://christinacattane.com where you can see the progress she is making on her novel. Or catch up with her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cmcattane

Tina Cattane

christinacattane.com/

If you missed this week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.

Once again, our 15 minute word sprint produced some great works. This week, the prompt was: The Antagonist Point of View.

“Ooh, there,” I almost yelled it out loud, but managed to stifle it before alerting Nettie to my presence in her garden. Her precious garden, I hmph. You know she cares about those stupid roses more than people, that’s what I like to say. 

Rhonda Hagerman

seekingmrdavison.com/