Today, May 16th, is (Inter)national Flash Fiction Day. In honor of the day, there are special events happening around the blogosphere and the world. My own flash, (Dust and Dime Novels), is featured on my blog. Also, I’m proud to say my flash story, Calico, has been published in the newly released, free pdf download of Twisted Tales: Flash Fiction with a Twist from Raging Aardvark Publications.

Download Twisted Tales *here*

If you prefer online reading, click *here* (available til end of day)

So celebrate the day with some free flash, and maybe write some of your own!

(Caveat: slight profanity)

*Click here for audio

Dust and Dime Novels

by Catherine Russell

The boy sat beneath the tree, clutching the precious book in small hands. Within its pages, outlaws and lawmen dueled beneath sweltering suns on dusty streets. A shadow fell across the pages, forcing him to turn from their darkened text. “Boyd! You’re back!” he cried, all thoughts of outlaws forgotten. Danny jumped to hug his older brother, the dust of travel forming a cloud around them both. “Did you bring me anything?” he asked.

“Well, I do not rightly know,” said the young man. “I haven’t been here but two minutes, and you’re hankering for…” His sunburnt face widened with his grin. “Aw, hell, I can not do it. Here!” He fished in his satchel, found the package wrapped in burlap, and handed it to the boy.

Danny grabbed the package, opening it up right there on the ground. When he saw the pile of books, he threw his arms around his brother. “I knew it! I knew you’d get me more. Thanks, Boyd!” He noticed a dark brown stain on the fabric wrapper. “Hey, what is this?”

Boyd’s face darkened. He snatched the course fabric from his brother’s hands, then flashed his beautific smile once more. “Nothing you need worry about. Just keep reading, do well in school, and you will make something of yourself one day. You won’t have to… you’ll make a better living than I do.”

“Aw, you provide well enough, Boyd,” said the boy. “You staying for supper, or going to see that girl of yours?” Danny scowled.

“Delia’s all right, little brother,” said Boyd, tousling the younger boy’s hair with a laugh. “I know you don’t trust her, but she’s good as gold.”

Danny glared but said nothing. His brother would never hear a word against her, but Danny knew those ruby lips were just a painted smile. Delia’s beauty might fool his brother, but sooner or later she’d show her true colors. The boy could only hope his brother would wake up about her before it was too late.

“Does she know you’re in town yet?” was all he managed.

“No, little brother,” Boyd answered. “I’m heading over there now. She’ll be expecting me though.”

“Stay a bit longer,” pleaded Danny. “Please?”

“I love you, little brother,” said Boyd, “but Delia’s charms appeal to a different part of my nature. But I’ll be back. You know I take care of family.” He tousled the boy’s hair once more, then remounted and headed toward town.

As Danny sat beneath the tree, paging through his new books, he watched his brother’s silhouette recede into the distance – like the hero from one of his dime novels.

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The next day – as Danny watched his brother’s body dance and sway from the hangman’s noose – he swore vengeance on the woman who had caused it all.

The bitch would pay.

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Today’s flash was written in honor of National Flash Fiction Day. It may be a a UK holiday, but there’s no reason that people around the world can’t celebrate too. This flash was inspired by the western online novel, Dust and Death, from Choose Your Online Adventures. The part of young Danny was performed by my son, Monsterbat.

*image courtesy of Bigfoto.com

**characters in this flash based (with permission) on characters from the western novel Dust and Death from ChooseYourOnlineAdventures.com

***”Bed” courtesy of Jahzzar via an Attribution-ShareAlike license. More of his music can be found at FreeMusicArchive.org or at betterwithmusic.com

Thou Shalt Not Covet

Lightning lit the bitter darkness. The clock chimed four times, and through the keyhole Stacy could see the beetle sitting squarely over her sibling’s heart. She smiled as the creature sucked the girl’s essence, draining her life.

The glazed eyes of the coveted sheep, clutched by tiny arms, stared blankly at nothing at all.

#

This week’s flash was inspired by a roll of the dice — or rather a roll of the Story Cubes. It was the first thing I wrote when I tried them out. I hope you enjoyed it.

As far as my other projects, I’m currently reverse-outlining my YA fantasy (2nd draft), working on another round of stories for the current Choose Your Online Adventures project, and I’m also happy to say I’m going to be a monthly contributor to the FridayFlash.org site! I will probably be covering some things that I’ve wrote about in my blog here, as well as discover new and exciting subjects along the way.

Also, one of my past #FridayFlash contributions, Red Riding Hood Revised, was published in the most recent issue of Beyond Centauri! I was thrilled when I received my first contributor’s copy in the mail. Another flash story that I submitted to another market has passed the first round of judging, so my fingers are crossed.

My podcast, My Writing Niche, will post a week from Sunday. I know I usually post new episodes every two weeks, but my flash this week is so short that I doubt it would be worth the effort. Also, next week I will have another story posted on the 15th (or 16th, depending on timezone) for the (UK) Flash Fiction Day; I recorded an audio version of my western-themed flash, and Monsterbat performed the part of the main character.

Thank you for your time, and have a lovely day!

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**image courtesy of Bigfoto.com

The man little suspected that the boy gazed at the boot to hide a wicked smile.

*image courtesy of LSE Library via The Commons at Flickr. No known copyright restrictions.

For fans of space epics and super heroes, the first weekend in May was a treasure trove. This past Friday, May 4th, was Star Wars day! Fans around the world celebrated a terrible pun (May the Fourth be with you) as well as a great movie series! Monsterbat and myself were lucky enough to be invited to our favorite indie bookstore, Backlist Books, for a Star Wars party. There were prizes, popcorn, and Star Wars trivial pursuit. The Yoda Soda (green punch) had Monsterbat bouncing off the walls, but it was worth it.

Saturday was our favorite day of the Year, Free Comic Book Day. Once a year, on the first Saturday in May, participating comic book stores across North America give away special ‘Free Comic Book Day’ editions of comics in order to promote this particular art of storytelling through pictures. I looked up the comics ahead of time, so I’d know which ones I was hunting looking for, and decided my quarry quest was for the Buffy/The Guild flip comic as well as the Zombie Kid (spoof of Diary of a Wimpy Kid).

We are fortunate enough to have several nice comic shops in our area. Our first stop was TOYS TIME FORGOT in Canal Fulton, but we had to come back later because there wasn’t any parking. It was worth the return trip.

Next we visited HEROIC ADVENTURES, where we not only got free comics, but Monsterbat received a signed drawing by our favorite local artist, Joe Miller. The store even hired a band to play and they had food and drinks available outside!-

BILL’S BOOKS & MORE was a bit of a challenge – again for parking. It was a small storefront with a tiny parking lot. We ending up circling several times before snagging a spot. Though the store was packed, this was the first store that carried the Buffy/Guild comic and also the Zombie Kid. Monsterbat was thrilled that they gave him the very last Heroclix Thor figure they had!

Heartbreak

Doc felt his own chest. He’d fallen, hard. How could his heart have broken, yet still beat steady and strong? He opened his chest and pulled out the mechanism. Only the case had cracked. A little soldering, and he’d be good as new.

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This week’s story was inspired by a prompt that I found at CreativeWritingPrompts.com: #127 Write about a heart that wouldn’t quit.   Polite feedback, positive and otherwise, is always appreciated. Thank you for your time, and have a lovely week!

**image courtesy of Bigfoto.com

Katie was amazed at how lifelike the reproduction was.

*image courtesy of National Library of Ireland on The Commons via Flickr. No known copyright restrictions.

Play or download episode *here*

Welcome to My Writing Niche, a podcast for new writers. Today’s podcast, #58, was recorded for Sunday, April 29, 2012; and I’ll be sharing some things about Shakespeare as well as World Book Night and my current projects. As always, I will try to put any relevant links in the show notes for this podcast, at ganymeder.com

Relevant Links

http://birthday2012.bloggingshakespeare.com/

The Tempest

Shakespeare Re-told

Much Ado About Nothing

As You Like It

Henry V

Hamlet

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Weekly audio plays

(audio) Hamlet

World Book Night

‘Ender’s Game’ by Orson Scott Card

Choose Your Online Adventures

National Flash Fiction Day

Annual Dandelion Festival

Free Comic Book Day

Thank you for your time. Polite feedback is both welcomed and appreciated, and I hope you have a lovely week!

**image courtesy of hiddedevries via Flicker.

***Slow Burn from the album Blues Sampler courtesy of Kevin MacLeod via Creative Commons Attribution license. More of his music can be found at FreeMusicArchive.org or at http://incompetech.com.

April 23rd is Shakespeare’s birthday. My son and I celebrated by giving away books for World Book Night; however there’s another party going on in the blogsphere. Between April 23rd and April 30th, bloggers around the world will post about the impact Shakespeare has had on their lives.

Shakespeare was a chore during school. His poetry was beautiful and romantic and I loved it instantly, but reading the plays was arduous. Let’s face it. Plays are meant to be seen – not read, deciphered, and picked apart in a classroom like that poor frog you tried to avoid dissecting in Biology class. Even with the teacher showing old movies, pointing to scenes and explaining, “No, see, it really IS funny!” If you have to explain the joke, the humor’s already lost.

However, Danny DeVito changed all that.

Renaissance Man  – a quirky film about a man teaching Shakespeare to misfit soldiers – helped me see the plays in a new way. Sex, drama, murder, betrayal… well, THAT’S certainly interesting! There was a scene where one soldier, answering his Sergeant’s question about the value of what he learned, quoted the Saint Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V. For the first time, I saw how the plays were just as relevant today as they were hundreds of years ago. From that point on, I wanted to watch them all.

Kenneth Branaugh taught me to love Henry V. Derek Jacobi made me love Hamlet. Later on, I watched Mel Gibson’s Hamlet and compared the two. (I still like Jacobi’s performance better. Sorry, Mel.) I visited a small, 20-person occupancy theater to watch a double feature of Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Through library films, audio productions, and (with new understanding) paperback copies of the plays, I fell in love with Shakespeare’s work.

Almost twenty years have passed since I discovered a love of Shakespeare. I see his influence throughout our culture, in the common everyday words and phrases he created, to the multiple adaptations of his plots in film and books. I’ve even massacred dabbled with his plays in short stories – writing sequels and rewriting endings for humorous effect.  If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, William Shakespeare is the most complimented man in the English speaking world.

His words live on, and he is remembered.

Madeleine retrieved the plant from the sparkling waters, careful not to let her gown fall too near the fairy circle.

*image courtesy of New York Public Library via Flickr. No known copyright restrictions.