photo by Maria L. Berg

#OctPoWriMo

Today’s OctPoWriMo theme is Silence or noise. I like today’s suggested poetry form Loop poetry.

I tried a loop poem, but didn’t like it as much as the free form poem I wrote first. It was   inspired by silence or noise, so here’s that one instead.

Writing In Silence

I write in the bright morning silence
The grass sparkles with dew
The water laps the shore
A fish leaps with a tap of a splash
A bird calls from the leaves
The radio warns the neighbor’s construction
Country music invades
The hammering begins
Bang! Bang!
Bang Bang Bang!
A motor boat roars the length of the lake
And back again
Its wake, roiling the water, pounds the shore long after
The morning’s illusion of seclusion polluted
The eagle screams, another fish jumps, an airplane splits the sky
I go inside and flip on the news.

#Writober4

The image for Day 11 on the Pinterest board (and above) shows a small boat in a storm.

My take: I took this picture last summer. I love the way the sky looks like it is reaching down to grab that boat. I also like how it looks like tendrils coming down from the clouds.

Micro-fiction: It fascinated her when boats came out in a storm. Today, the sky reached down and plucked the foolish from the water as if they were hors d’oeuvres at a party.

Writing Process and Tools

What makes great flash fiction?

This morning I did some reading about writing great flash fiction. I enjoyed the article Expert Tips for Writing Great Flash Fiction from the Writer. They included a great quote from Anthony Varallo, fiction editor at Crazyhorse:

“A good flash fiction leads the reader into a world already in full swing – if the story isn’t already underway by the first punctuation mark, forget it – and builds to a moment of change or transformation.”

The best way to learn about what makes great flash fiction is to read flash fiction. You can find an amazing amount of flash fiction online:

Smokelong Quarterly
Atticus Review
The Carolina Quarterly
Flash Fiction Online

Bookfox put out an interesting list of sites to find flash fiction online with traffic numbers.

Creepy verbs: damn, curse, descend, burn, cremate, deal

Story Cubes Symbols: magic wand, light bulb, world, magnifying glass, tree, drama masks, cane, question mark, volcano

Woodland creature: lizard

Horror trope:Giant squids and sharks

Oblique Strategies: Accept advice

Happy Reading and Writing!