I'm going on hiatus from #fridayflash for a while - too much else on my plate now, and in the coming months. Thanks to everyone who's read and commented on my stories to date; I hope to rejoin you again, probably next year, after the launch of the revised/updated edition of The IndieAuthor Guide this winter.

“I miss the almond tree.”

Nancy looked up from her coffee. “What, honey?” she asked.

This week, I present an excerpt from my other novel, Snow Ball. Snow Ball is not at all like Adelaide Einstein, it's a dark comic mystery. And when I say dark, I mean it --- as this excerpt will demonstrate.

“Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky…” Velma crooned, bouncing one hip as she worked.  She spun to open the refrigerator door, briefly eyed its numerous contenders for lunchtime beverages, then closed it again and stepped over to the basement door.  She gave it a little push to open it wider, calling, “Do ya want pop or milk with your lunch?”  Her accent made the word “pop” sound like “pap”.

Here's another of my three-minutes-or-less editorial screenplays of a movie I've seen which strained my credulity, patience or sanity on some level. I find it's fun to rewrite those movies to more closely approximate my experience of them. This was my take on Amelie.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through my draft

Were examples of my inattention to craft

My characters all hung about without care,

In hopes that a plot point soon would be there.

Here's an old chestnut from my screenwriting days. Back then, for fun, I used to enjoy creating three-minutes-or-less editorial screenplays of movies I'd seen which strained my credulity, patience or sanity on some level. In other words, I'd mock those movies by rewriting them. This was my take on Spiderman.

As per usual, I've been struck with inspiration for a new novel at a time when I have a plate that's already filled to overflowing. I've made some notes and will probably steal an hour here and there wherever possible to keep working on it in the months to come. It's a crime drama, something I've never attempted before, but who can argue with the muse? Here's the opening scene.

The tableau of the dead girl lying on her side in the bed of the truck was beautiful.

When it comes to infidelity, experts always say it’s just a symptom of an underlying problem and the blame must be shared between the cheater and the betrayed.

In this case, Charlotte was pretty sure the blame was all Tim’s.

“Goddamn it, Charlotte,” he rasped, “We’ve been going around and around on this thing for…” he checked his watch and his shoulders drooped. “Nearly five hours now. I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll say whatever you want, but this has to end.”

“You’re a selfish bastard.”

“Absolutely.”

“And I can’t trust you anymore.

This week, I present an excerpt from Angelcake: a screenplay I wrote and have been working on converting into a novel off and on for years. In the story, following her accidental death, Judy Stringer is pressed into service as an unlikely, otherworldly suicide interventionist. She must prevent three suicides, or spend the equivalent of three lives' worth of life expectancy as an afterlife public service worker under a literal boss from Hell: a matronly shrew of a demon supervisor nicknamed Attila the Bun.

There was once a cat who loved a woman.

Actually there are often cats who love women, but it’s usually just a passing fancy quickly outgrown with kittenhood. This was a special case.

First, there was the matter of his name. She didn’t give him one right away, as so many humans do, based only on the color of his fur, or his propensity toward (or away from) play. Gathering him into her lap like a sleek, black puddle, she said, “You already have a name. All cats do. I just have to guess it.”

This week, I offer an excerpt from my novel, Adelaide Einstein. I think I'm going to have to keep alternating between original flash fic and excerpts from fiction and screenplays I've already written if I have any hope of keeping all my plates spinning!

There were a few minutes of silence, during which Adelaide recalled how excited and full of dreams she’d been when she arrived in this Golden Gate city all those years ago; meanwhile, Patty wondered why her mother had come all this way just to drop out of school and get married. She might as well have stayed in Earle like her younger sister. 

“Honey, if you don’t feed it, it’ll die like the last one.”

“But Mom,” Garrett whined, as only an eight year old can, “every time I go near the cage it goes crazy and tries to escape. Or kill me.”

She finished rinsing the dishes, dried her hands and turned to face him. “You have to approach it slowly and speak to it in a soft, reassuring voice. If you’re nice to it, it’ll learn to trust you.”

Garrett sighed and looked doubtful. “It’s just mean, Mom.”

This week I'm cheating a bit by presenting the opening to my work-in-progress novel---though I'm using the expression "in progress" very loosely since I haven't done any work on this in over a year.

I want to point out that the story doesn't have an especially feminist bent, this isn't man-hating lit. It's more an exploration of how each sex (male vs. female) defines the other to some extent, and the possible impacts of removing one sex's influence on the other. I got the idea one day after hearing someone say, yet again, that if women ran the world there would be no wars or crimes against humanity, and women everywhere would go around in sweatpants and ponytails. I disagree, and wanted to explore the reasons why.

Gears grinding, the sorely abused SUV careened through the four-way stop at full speed, forcing the half dozen cars in its wake to scatter like ants in the rain. From there it wove at top speed down 17^th, scuffing too many bumpers and setting off too many car alarms to count.

It literally cut the corner at Holt Street, jumping across a small triangle of sidewalk to bypass a Mini Cooper that showed no signs of forward momentum—never mind that the light was red—, displacing a bus bench and adding yet another battle scar to its disfigured chassis.

This is something new for me. Since I've been so busy with the whole indie author dog and pony show, I haven't had time to work on my latest novel in over a year. But this new thing, flash fiction, has come to my rescue and I'm finding I really like it. Flash fiction is short stories of just a few pages (or less!), and many authors have begun posting them on Fridays. Hence, #FridayFlash.

The brevity of the format makes it feel much more doable than trying to make progess on a novel, and I'm finding the limited space forces tight writing and necessitates focus in a piece. I think it builds and hones skills. As often as time allows I'll be posting my #FridayFlash here on Publetariat, since people come to my Indie Author Blog to read stuff about self-publishing and indie authorship, not my fiction. So here's 'Justice For Cody'. - A