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July Flash Fiction Draw: A Trunk Full of Love

Well, this is a weird one. But I say that every time, don’t I?

I’m not sure I can explain exactly where in my imagination this one came from, apart from the requirements of the July Flash Fiction Draw prompt: a comedy, set in the trunk of a car, including a vacuum cleaner (which makes a late entrance in the story). And since that defied explanation, I don’t really explain it in the story, either. Hopefully, it’s funny.

Let’s find out, shall we?

A Trunk Full of Love

You meet the most interesting people in the backs of cars. And by backs of cars, I mean the trunk.

I don’t know what it is about me that makes people think you know, he really belongs in the trunk of my late model American luxury sedan, but whatever it is, I find myself stuffed into them a lot. I think the first one was a Chevy Caprice Classic—roomy, although the suspension left something to be desired. Most recently, it was a burgundy Mercury Grand Marquis, and I have to say, that was the most comfortable, smooth ride I’ve remembered in a long time.

It’s amazing how often I’m not the only person in the trunk, either. I’ve met everyone from high school math teachers to visiting heads of state, the latter of which is highly unusual when you consider that I live in the Midwest, hardly a diplomatic hub. I’ve also met accountants, custodians, a physicist, a semi-famous author, and a really famous singer.

It’s also how I met Kevin.

I was already in the trunk when he was bundled in next to me. This was the Grand Marquis, by the way. Lucky for that, as Kevin is a rather large guy. It was his first time in a trunk, which kind of surprised me, later. He has the sort of face, you see, that makes you instantly think there’s a guy who belongs in my trunk. Needless to say, he was kind of nervous.

“Does this go on for very long?”

I shrugged, which he couldn’t see, being that we were inside a closed trunk and there really isn’t all that much light. I told him I thought there was a trunk light somewhere behind his head if he could find the switch, but he couldn’t maneuver around to reach it.

“Sometimes. Not usually. Do you have an appointment you have to get to?”

“No, it’s just….”

“First time?”

“Yeah.”

As first times go, it wasn’t the best trunk to be in. I’ve been in some where they have comfortable pillows, snacks and bottled water, But, it could have been worse. It was clean, at least. I’ve been in some that were drafty, damp, rusty. The most uncomfortable involved lying on top of a spare tire.

“You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“No,” he replied, his voice rising in pitch suddenly. He cleared his throat and, in a lower tone, said, “At least, I don’t think so. I hope not.”

“Probably would’ve kicked in by now,” I said.

“You sound like this is old hat to you.” His voice had the sound of a smile, even if I couldn’t see it. That’s the thing when you spend a lot of time in the trunks of cars. You start tuning in to the way people talk more. At least, I did.

But that was a long time ago. And uncharacteristically, we were in there a long time. I think the driver may have forgotten about us, because when the trunk lid finally opened, he held the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner in one hand and we were in the lot of one of those automated carwash places. I don’t think he was expecting us to come climbing out.

I wasn’t expecting Kevin to ask me on a date, either. And I certainly wasn’t expecting him, a few months later, to ask me to marry him. You hear about those kinds of fairy tale stories but they’re always happening to other people. I guess I know better now. Dreams can come true.

Flash Fiction Draw for July 2021

It’s the first Monday of the month, which means it’s time for the July Flash Fiction Draw writing prompt. And clearly I’m leaving it until the very last minute this time, aren’t I? But better late than never, right? Besides, we’re grown-ass adults and we can make our own rules. So if I say, for instance, that we can have until next Tuesday instead of next Monday to finish our stories, that’s all fine and dandy, isn’t it?

All in favor? Motion carries. Moving on!

(As always, if you want to skip the preamble, you can click here and go right to the good stuff.)

In the spirit of making our own rules, I also came to a decision this month: if there’s anything I can’t stand more than listening to myself talk, it’s listening to myself talk and watching my face make all kinds of weird expressions. So, starting this month I’m ditching the videos. Hardly anyone watches them anyway. And I don’t blame you one bit.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s where we stand so far—the grayed-out boxes are the prompt elements we’ve already used:

Card drawnGenreSettingObject1RomanceSpaceshipRay gun2Science FictionRestaurant kitchenKey3Fairy TaleStudio apartment in a big cityHairbrush4HorrorAuditoriumLength of rope5MysterySewerPendant and necklace6ThrillerHighway tollboothPotted plant7ComedyFarm fieldTablet computer8FantasyPawn shopFountain pen9Ghost StoryMarshDecorative pillow10SuspenseTulip fieldVacuum cleanerJCrime CaperTrunk of a carBouquet of rosesQAction/AdventureToolshed / Utility closetA stray sockKHistorical FictionShopping mallSuitcase

And here are the cards I drew this month:

Well, that’s certainly an interesting combination. But you know, I was hoping “comedy” and “trunk of a car” would come up together. Horror and car trunk just seems too on the nose, after all.

So there we have it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a 1,000-word (max) story by next Tuesday, July 13, specifically:

a comedy,set in the trunk of a car,including a vacuum cleaner.

Drop a link to your story in the comments below, or send it by email, or leave me a tweet, and I’ll post all the links next week.

OK, I think I’ve already got my first line. Good luck!

The Final Decree is on sale at Smashwords through July

If you haven’t downloaded The Final Decree yet, there’s a sale running at Smashwords for the entire month of July where it’s available for 50% off. Who doesn’t love a sale? I know I do. No need to do anything special to get the discount, just buy it at Smashwords before July’s over.

And if you’ve already bought it (thank you, by the way!), I’d be grateful if you shared that Smashwords link on your social media platform of choice. Word of mouth is still one of the best ways for readers to connect with books, and I need (and appreciate) all the help I can get.

The same thing applies to reviews. A review on a retailer’s website (or on a site like The Story Graph or Goodreads) helps improve a book’s visibility and makes it more likely other people will find it. And if, like me, you’re often stumped with what to say about a book, my friend and writing collaborator ’Nathan offers this surefire formula for a three-sentence review. I’ve used it often myself.

I totally did a podcast.

Let it be known that I hate the sound of my own voice. I think we’re all inclined to cringe when we hear ourselves speak, though, aren’t we? I wonder if people who have fantastic voices, like Patrick Stewart or Angela Bassett, feel this way too, or do they think, “Dang, I sound good”?

All of this is to say that you can hear me speak on a recent episode of my friend James Elliott’s podcast, “The ‘OMG We Should Totally Do a Podcast’ Podcast.” If you’re not familiar with James, he’s the owner of Filigree & Shadow, a creator of certified vegan and cruelty-free fragrances based in Seattle. His work is phenomenal and they’re the only colognes I wear. (Incurable is my personal favorite, but I also enjoy ordering a sample pack of six different fragrances and surprising myself.)

We talk about writing, of course, but we also talk about the strange time in the development of the internet when we met (i.e., blogging), how it led to my being published, what I learned from self-publishing The Final Decree, and what’s coming next.

Give it a listen, exclusively on Spotify. (At least, I think it’s a Spotify exclusive. I’m going to go with that because calling something “exclusive” sounds really top drawer, doesn’t it?) I’m really grateful to James for letting me ramble and stutter, and I can’t wait to hear who else he has lined up for this.

June Flash Fiction Draw: The Results!

I love this part, getting to see the different stories people came up with from the same writing prompt.

Only two this month, but maybe a horror prompt in the summertime is a tough genre ask? Regardless, I loved these, and I hope you do too:

All Ticked Off, by E H TimmsWhat We Found in the Back Room at Viterbo’s Pawn and Loan, by Jeff Baker (Mr. Ricker should totally spring for the extra air conditioner because he’s no fan of the heat either)OK, and mine as well

Thanks for participating! And if you wanted to but didn’t quite make the deadline, don’t worry. It’s not really a hard and fast deadline. Go ahead and let me know when you’ve written something, and I’ll update this post.

 

June Flash Fiction Draw: A Little Frayed at the End

True fact: I don’t write a lot of horror.

One lesson I remember from my friend and editor Greg Herren, though, when it comes to approaching genres I don’t have a lot of  experience with, is to go at them with a mindset of “I’ve never tried that before” instead of “I could never do that.”

And that’s how I approached this month’s Flash Fiction Draw writing prompt, which asked for a horror story set in a pawn shop incorporating a length of rope. I also don’t often write from the point of view of an inanimate object, but reading this year’s Nebula award winning short story, “Open House on Haunted Hill,” got me in the appropriate mindset. (That’s a really good story and I highly recommend reading it.)

Check back later today for a roundup of all the stories written to this prompt. Meanwhile, without further ado, here’s a story about the little rope that could. Kill, that is.

A Little Frayed at the End

Over the years, the pawn shop on the corner had somehow amassed a vast repository of evil, cursed, enchanted or otherwise wickedly magical items. The length of rope coiled on a nail behind the counter was not one of the evil things, but it was enchanted, and it had one job: to keep the evil in check.

This was not always easy.

In its time, it had pulled screws and parts out of a possessed lawnmower that loved nothing more than running over children and small animals, unstrung a strand of pearls that fancied itself an upscale garrote, and it had dismantled a demonic secondhand chainsaw for reasons that are probably obvious.

In all that time, the rope had never been called upon to harm a human being, until a Thursday night when the owner of the shop decided to work late.

The neighborhood was hardly the worst in town, but it wasn’t the safest. Situated in a neutral zone between the old industrial city and the new modern office core, the shop saw little foot traffic and not much activity around it, other than cars passing through on their way to other places. People who came to the shop came there for one reason, not because they just happened to be passing by.

Which made it an easy target for thieves.

There had been thefts over the years, a little B&E that the police didn’t do much about and that the owner sometimes didn’t even report if the total amount stolen made reporting it not worth the hassle. There was also the shop’s insurance coverage to consider. Likewise, he’d upgraded the security system, which would have prevented that Thursday night break-in if he’d bothered to turn it on. But why turn it on when he was in the shop?

It was late, though, and he hadn’t counted on dozing off at his desk. And he should have secured the deadbolt on the front door, at least. When the thief entered, he didn’t even have to break anything. He just opened the door and walked in.

He took the money from the cash drawer—a few hundred dollars, not much, and clearly not as much as he’d hoped to get. He looked around and noticed the light coming from underneath the office door in the back. From the pocket of his jacket he drew a knife and headed that way.

The rope slid to the floor.

It moved slowly, lashing itself to the legs of display cases and pulling itself across the floor in pursuit of the thief. It reached him by the time he pushed the office door open and raised the knife.

It went for the ankle first, tripping the thief and sending the knife skittering across the carpet. Before the man could reach for the weapon, the rope slithered up his body, coiled around his neck, and pulled. And pulled. And pulled. The man got a finger between the rope and his neck. The rope broke the finger and kept constricting until the man stopped struggling, and it didn’t uncoil until the man had also stopped breathing.

Dragging the body out of the shop took it a while. Fortunately, the owner was fast asleep now and didn’t hear it lashing itself to furniture for leverage as it pulled the corpse along the floor and out the back door to the alley. This took it at least an hour, but the rope was patient. It had a job, and it would do it, until the thief’s body was behind a dumpster far enough away that no one would have any reason to connect it with the pawn shop, where an old man had simply fallen asleep at his desk and hadn’t seen or heard a thing.

And before it returned to its nail behind the counter, the rope locked the front door.

Flash Fiction Draw for June 2021

Happy almost summer! (Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case happy almost winter.) I know, I can’t believe it either. Let’s get right to this month’s flash fiction draw, shall we?

(And as always, if you want to skip the preamble, you can click here and go right to the good stuff.)

Here’s where we stand so far—the grayed-out boxes are the prompt elements we’ve already used:

Card drawnGenreSettingObject1RomanceSpaceshipRay gun2Science FictionRestaurant kitchenKey3Fairy TaleStudio apartment in a big cityHairbrush4HorrorAuditoriumLength of rope5MysterySewerPendant and necklace6ThrillerHighway tollboothPotted plant7ComedyFarm fieldTablet computer8FantasyPawn shopFountain pen9Ghost StoryMarshDecorative pillow10SuspenseTulip fieldVacuum cleanerJCrime CaperTrunk of a carBouquet of rosesQAction/AdventureToolshed / Utility closetA stray sockKHistorical FictionShopping mallSuitcase

And here’s the video, should you be so inclined:

And here’s the prompt:

Horror…in a pawn shop…with a length of rope.

While the deadline is technically Monday, June 11, there’s no pressure here. And prompts, like cake, are eternal. So there’s no expiration date on this, or any of the other prompts. They’re here for you whenever you feel like adding a dose of random to your writing routine, and you can try the same prompt again and again and see what different things you come up with. Whatever, whenever, I’ll be curious to hear what you’ve written.

Surprise! I have a book coming out next year.

I mean, it was kind of a surprise to me when I woke up this morning and one of my collaborators wrote to say, “Hey, guess what’s up?” I had hoped to have time to put together a whole list of stuff, but…

And when it does, what can you do except…

Anyway. I have a YA book coming out next year! (Yes, I know I already said that.) It’s called Three Left Turns to Nowhere, and it’s a collection of three interconnected novellas set in the small town of Hopewell, Ontario. (Thankfully, my friend Phil from college got married in Ontario, so I can at least say that yes, I’ve been to the place I’m writing about. Sort of.) My contribution is titled “Roadside Assistance,” and car trouble is a running theme throughout.

Here’s the whole blurb:

Three strangers heading to a convention in Toronto are stranded in rural Ontario, where a small town with a subtle kind of magic leads each to discover what he’s been searching for.

Ed Sinclair and his friends get stuck in Hopewell after their car breaks down. It’s snark at first sight when he meets local mechanic Lyn, but while they’re getting under each other’s skin, the town might show them a way into one another’s hearts.

Rome Epstein is out and proud and clueless about love. He’s hosting a giant scavenger hunt at the convention, but ends up in Hopewell. When the town starts leaving him clues for its own scavenger hunt, he discovers a boy who could be the prize he’s been searching for.

Fielding Roy has a gift for seeing the past. His trip to reunite with friends hits an unexpected stop in Hopewell, but a long-lost love letter and two local boys give him a chance to do more than watch the past. This time, Fielding might be able to fix the present.

And now, my favorite part: the cover!

Another gorgeous design by Matthew Bright of Inkspiral Design. He also designed the cover for The Final Decree, as well as a number of covers for my friend ’Nathan Burgoine, who is one of the collaborators on this book.

And can I just say how absolutely delightful it is to be collaborating with him on this? It’s hard to believe we’ve been friends for over ten years now, and we’ve talked about working on something together for the longest time (although it was probably more him saying “I have this idea for a shared-world collection of stories” and me going “please let me! Can I? Huh? Can I?” because I’m subtle and cool like that). It’s great that we’re finally getting to do that.

I’ll share ebook links as soon as they’re available, but here are a few places you can preorder the paperback now (with more to come):

Left Bank Books (my local!)

Indigo

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Preorders help a lot, so click that link and keep my so-called writing career going!

May Flash Fiction Draw: House Lights Up

Wow, this one is late.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m on deadline for a project I can’t talk about yet, but that I’m very excited about. (Also? I will never contract for something that isn’t finished ever again. Never. Mark my words. And remind me of this when I think writing to a deadline is a good idea for me. Because, honestly, it’s not. People think I’m disciplined but I must have them fooled, because I don’t feel that way, at all.)

ANYWAY. A while back I wrote a flash piece, “Exile,” which was a denouement to a story that I actually hadn’t finished writing at the time—and still haven’t, if we’re being completely honest here. (And why not be honest? I have so many unfinished projects, I could never come up with a new idea for the rest of my life and I’d still have plenty of projects to finish. I guess that’s a good position to be in.) This month’s Flash Fiction Draw prompt—science fiction, in an auditorium, with a computer tablet—made me think of an alternate ending to this story that I still haven’t finished, and so, without further ado:

House Lights Up

Doyle knew the auditorium was empty before he walked in. His tap into the station’s surveillance system gave him access to all the audio/video monitors in the room, as well as the biometric scanners. He scattered his own bio signature so that his presence registered as nothing more than an elevation in ambient temperature. No one would ever know he’d been there.

Except, of course, for the person who asked him to meet there.

Matt’s heartbeat registered in the biometrics before Doyle saw him, emerging from the shadows at the front of the auditorium. He entered from stage left. The room was still mostly dark, and it was obvious, as he scanned the rows of empty seats, that he didn’t see Doyle.

Well, Doyle could help with that. He sent a command to the lighting system and brought up the house lights. Matt looked startled to find himself standing in the middle of a spotlight’s soft yellow glow. Squinting against the sudden glare, he shaded his eyes and stepped to the edge of the stage.

“Doyle?”

The room may have registered him as nothing more than background heat, but Doyle’s heart was beating faster now. And his heart, unlike other parts of him, was still flesh. He walked toward the stage.

“Nice entrance, Matt.” He said his name to keep from calling him Range. He hadn’t done that to his face yet, had he?

“So, you want to tell me who you really are?”

“Honestly? No.”

“I’ll buy that. It’s probably the first truthful thing you’ve said to me since I met you.”

Doyle shook his head. “I meant what I said about the sushi bar’s salmon rolls. Those’ll kill you.”

“Okay, that makes two truthful things. Anything else you told me that wasn’t a lie?”

“I wasn’t lying when I told you about Range.”

Matt nodded. “The man with the same face as me. The one you can’t go back to.”

Doyle shook his head. “More than just him. I can’t go back to anything from that universe. When I sent the Morellan agent back through the vortex, it collapsed the link between our realities. From now on, this is my home.”

Matt was quiet for a long moment. In that time, Doyle listened to the clicking of the ventilation exchange, the background hum of the gravity emitters below their feet, and read a terabyte of system communication traffic, looking for any signs that he might have missed a loose thread that needed tying—or cutting.

But there was nothing. This reality was refreshingly mundane.

“We don’t have Morellans in this universe,” Matt said.

Doyle’s artificial eye detected the tremor along Matt’s shoulders. For someone who lived in a reality where there were no other life forms than humans, he could imagine how unsettling they’d be. Doyle found Morellans mostly annoying. And kind of smelly.

“What’s to say they won’t come back again?” Matt asked.

Doyle stood at the edge of the stage now. “For a species with that many tentacles, their thinking is surprisingly binary, this or that. The Morellans tried to get the Dormany crystals here, but they failed. They may try something else, somewhere else, but they won’t try the same thing twice.”

“You sound very confident of that.”

“I’m not confident of many things, but that’s once I would bet money on.” He paused. “You have money in this universe, right?”

Matt laughed, humorlessly. “If we didn’t, there wouldn’t be much point in me trying to steal ten kilos of crystals for an interdimensional invasion force, would there?”

“They weren’t going to invade your universe. Not permanently, anyway. If they could have gotten their tentacles on all those crystals, they might have crossed the barrier en masse, but only long enough to get what they want. No, they would have left eventually.”

“So why did you come here, then?”

“You mean to this universe, or to the auditorium tonight?”

Matt paused, as if maybe he didn’t know which one he meant. Maybe, to him, there wasn’t a difference between the two. Doyle moved closer. He was at the edge of the stage now.

“Why did you want me to come here, Matt?”

The question seemed to stump him. He looked at Doyle, mouth half open, before staring down at the floor with an exasperated smile, hands on hips. His voice strained, he said, “I had to keep my promise.”

“Which was?”

Matt opened up his palm, and a tablet sprang up in front of him. He tapped a set of controls on the holographic surface. “This.”

The lights dimmed, and for a moment, they stood in blackness. Then, in an instant, the ceiling above them pulsed with a soft glow, before becoming transparent. A spray of stars painted dim light overhead before the outpost’s rotation brought the planet in view.

“I still don’t—“

Matt shushed him. “Wait for it.”

The meteorites appeared one at a time at first, some of them as small as grains of sand, their velocity the only thing that made them flare brightly against the planet’s atmosphere as they incinerated. Others, larger, burned a tail of fire across the darkness as they plunged toward the surface.

Doyle sat on the edge of the stage and stared up at the meteor shower. It wasn’t real, of course—the planet had passed the debris cluster two days ago, it was out of range by now—but Matt must have talked someone at the station into letting him replay the holo recording. It hadn’t really been a date when Doyle had suggested it earlier, more of a pretense, but it was a meeting he would have liked to keep, anyway.

Matt sat next to him and stared up. They both stayed there for a long time, not saying anything, just looking up at the light show and hoping it wouldn’t end any time soon.

May Flash Fiction Draw: The Results!

So… I’m running a little behind.

I’m on deadline, you see, for a super awesome thing that I can’t tell you about yet. That deadline is getting SUPER close now, and I’m… not done. So I spent a good part of the weekend working on that (when I wasn’t procrastinating, which it turns out is the thing I’m absolutely the best at) instead of working on my Flash Fiction Draw story.

That story’s in process, I promise, but it won’t be finished until later today.

However! That doesn’t mean you need to wait to see all the stories that other folks have written. So, to refresh your memory, this month’s prompt was for a science fiction story, set in an auditorium, including a tablet computer. Here’s who we have so far!

An Unconventional Skiltaire Party by Iara WarriorefeatherSunset Warning by E H TimmsWon’t You Be My Neighbor? by Jeff Baker

And eventually mine. Really! I promise.