Tag: creative-writing

  • Focus!

    The kid started in middle school this year, and I wrote awhile back about how she is adjusting to having more homework. And it’s going okay. We are still working and adjusting to the change.

    One of the issues the kid has with doing her homework, is that she gets bored and her mind wanders. A totally normal reaction for a kid to have when it comes to reading about world history, or having to write a paragraph on the three different states of matter. What we are trying is the twenty minutes of work, and five minutes of break time. Back and forth until the home work is done. Seems to be working.

    The funny thing that I discovered about myself is that I can’t sit down and work anymore. Good lord do I get distracted easily. Like really easily. See, I have been trying to work on this blog for thirty minutes now, but I keep on thinking of something else I need to do – which I have to go and do so I don’t forget.

    Sure, I know that there are some of you out there that would call that procrastinating, and you might be right.

    But what I feel myself experiencing is a lack of focus. Like, I sit down and I write a sentence, and then I start to wonder about… well, anything and everything. I kind’a find myself going to Wikipedia and just reading page after page about weird stuff. Or seeing if L.L Bean is selling any sweaters at a discount.

    I feel that I have lost the skill of being able to sit down and focus for even twenty minutes.

    I could blame my phone, and that would be accurate. Yet, don’t I have to take a little responsibility here? If I have a lack of focus, then I am the one who created this problem, right?

  • Short Story Review: “Why I didn’t Immediately Load the Car When My Husband Texted that the Fire Was Getting Closer” by Claudia Monpere

    (The flash piece “Why I didn’t Immediately Load the Car When My Husband Texted that the Fire Was Getting Closer” by Claudia Monpere, appeared in Milk Candy Review.)

    I like flash fiction; it is my preferred form of storytelling now. It’s a very malleable form as well. It can be a straight forward very short short story, it can boarder right up to poetry, a snapshot of stream of consciousness – whatever it needs to be to tell a story, or complete a thought, or action – flash fiction can do it.

    In Claudia Monpere’s “Why I didn’t Immediately Load the Car When My Husband Texted that the Fire Was Getting Closer,” we are presented with an impressively short flash piece (193 words) that consists of 10 sentences. The title also functions as an essential setup, as the body of the piece is answering that question. A device is employed with 9 of the sentences beginning with the word “Because,” except for the last one. Though this is not the most original device, Monpere uses it effectively to create a rhythm and a pace that builds to the concluding final sentence. Also, the third, sixth, and eighth sentences are about the impending fire, creating a dramatic effect, like a ticking clock, adding to the tension of this moment. “Why didn’t I…” is a good example of why the flash fiction form is so intriguing when it comes to telling stories and expressing feelings and thoughts.

    As a person who also had to load a car quickly as a wildfire approached my home, I deeply identified with this piece. When a natural disaster is an abstract, and just a mental exercise, you think you know how you’ll react, and prioritize what is important when that moment arrives. But when you open your front door and can smell the fire, see the sky changing color, and hear the fire trucks, you don’t know what to do at first, and I grasped for the things I thought were important, before I realized what was important. And maybe I am biased due to my personal experience, but Claudia Monpere captured an emotional truth in the middle of a disaster perfectly.

  • Short Story Review: “Self-Portrait in Assignments” by Max Kruger-Dull

    (The short story “Self-Portrait in Assignments” by Max Kruger-Dull appeared on November 30th, 2023 in Milk Candy Review.)

    I am a strong proponent for flash fiction to not behave like a short story. That’s not to say that a writer cannot craft a well written short story in under a thousand words which exhibits all the qualities of a traditional short story; opening, rising action, climax, conclusion, character development…etc. I hold to that flash fiction should reject the use of plot, climax, and even resolution. Flash should be its own beast that is about the expression of an idea or an emotion, wherein the narrative ends with the conclusion of the idea or emotion, but does not necessitate a resolution of the idea or emotion.

    (Academic enough for you?)

    “Self-Portrait in Assignments” by Max Kruger-Dull came across my desk last week, and I have been kicking it around in my head ever since. It’s the type of flash story that was a bit of a gut punch and made me question my approach toward this style of fiction. The piece is made up of ten short vignettes, just about all dealing with words that, in one way or another, have been assigned to the narrator. Each short piece is titled with the abbreviated name of the person who did the assigning.

    So, that’s the form of the piece.

    The way these ten vignettes play with each other creates a picture of the narrator, though not in a linear timeline, more of a sequence that exemplifies the narrators emotional standing, and ultimately, emotional growth. Though the narrator comes across as a smart person, there is also a hint of a lack of self-confidence, though a determination to keep trying also exists in the character. That determination is exemplified in the love and care that the narrator has for his daughter. Kruger-Dull smartly gives three examples of interactions with the daughter; one being before the daughter was born thus showing how her influence was already present in the narrators life. By using the rule of three, the importance of this relationship is made paramount, thus signaling the emotional conclusion of this “self-portrait.”

    All the notes are played right in this piece, which left me feeling satisfied with the journey that this piece took me on. I want to say that the narrator started in one place and finished in another, but did they? Did the narrator only acknowledge their shortcomings, and choose not to pass them on to their daughter? I first thought there wasn’t a conflict in the piece, but was there? Was the narrator fighting to accept himself in the eyes of his daughter? To be better for her, even if that means he has to fake who he is?

    See; I can’t put my finger on what it is. But what I do know is that “Self-Portrait in Assignments” is using flash fiction in a specific way to express an emotional idea that couldn’t exist an any other format.