Tag Archives: Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction Challenge #1

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Welcome to the very first Potato Chip Math / Tales of Whoa flash fiction challenge!

The rules are very simple: we give you a prompt and you write 500 words or less (including the prompt).

You can write in any style that you wish; just be sure to use the prompt exactly as it is shown, keep it under 500 words, write it in English, and ensure it’s completely made up (this is a flash fiction challenge after all).

Next week Gordon and I will post links to the pieces we liked the best and will probably do a shout out on Twitter to those folks if they so desire. After a few months we’ll compile a list of our favourites and we’ll get the Internet to vote. The winner will win stuff (to be determined, but we’re sure they’ll love it).

Now, without further ado we present this week’s prompt:

“I’m not sure it was entirely necessary, but I can guarantee you there’s a lineup of people behind me that will tell you he had it coming.”

Use the comments below to submit your work. You can submit anonymously, but if you don’t leave us an email address or something you can’t win.

Have fun!

~ Andrew & Gordon

Welcome to 2014

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Happy New Year!

2014 is going to be a big one for me on a couple fronts, not the least of which is that I’ll have a book out. My first novel, No Fixed Address, was finished at the end of November and editing and rewrites begin in earnest sometime in the next few weeks. If I can get it traditionally published I’ll go that route, but it will be available electronically one way or another, I promise. I’m actually looking forward to my first rejection letter. Is that odd?

I’ll also try to finish novel #2 (tentatively titled The Book of Good) sometime before October. I picked this timeline for a couple reasons:

  1. It will give me time to edit and polish the first novel, 
  2. It will leave me with the month of October to outline…
  3. So I can participate in NaNoWriMo again – this time to finish No Known Cure (the sequel to No Fixed Address). 
Also on the writing front, I’ll be posting every Sunday again on a whole whack of topics, but with the majority touching on my experiences as an up-and-coming writer and what it’s like to live and interact with all these crazy strange interesting crazy writer-type-folks. 
Courtesy Stuart Miles at http://freedigitalphotos.net 
Speaking of crazy writer-type-folks, I am happy to announce that I have teamed up with author Gordon Bonnet to run a weekly flash fiction contest! Here’s the basic low-down on how it will all unfold:
  • Every Wednesday we will post a prompt; sometimes just a word, sometimes a sentence, maybe even a picture
  • Then, you leave a comment giving us 500 of your best words. It can be any genre or format that you wish but it must follow the prompt and it must be totally made up (please, let’s give ourselves a break from the real world for a few minutes, okay?) 
  • The next week Gordon and I will give a shout out to the entries that we liked the best and we’ll issue another prompt
  • Lather, rinse, repeat
Since both Gordon and I have blogs (Gordon’s is called Tales of Whoa) what we’ll do is alternate the hosting of the prompt and capturing of the comments. Don’t worry though, when you come to either of the blogs there will be a redirect to the one hosting the prompt. We figured this would cause less confusion than starting up a whole separate blog just for this. Plus we would have had to come up with a fancy name for it and that seemed like a whole lot of work.
Oh, I forgot the best part! Every three or four months Gordon and I will comprise a short list of about 10 of the entries from that period and we’ll put up a poll and have readers vote on which one they liked the most. After a voting period (exact amount of time still to be determined) the winner will receive free stuff! It will likely be free books written by either Gordon, myself, or someone who’s graciously donated one for us to give away. 
You could win books! Not these books though, they are my daughter’s.
This pic, links to posts and other fun stuff can be found on my Facebook page 
You might be saying to yourself, “Self, I’m really interested in everything that Andrew guy has on the go for 2014. There couldn’t possibly be more, could there?” 
Ah, but there is!
A friend of mine, a writer and fellow creative, D. Savannah George, posted to Facebook the result of her attempt at taking a picture a day. She got well over 200 done, and I was suitably impressed; both with the dedication it required and with the resulting art. So, in the waning hours of 2013, and prompted by a few friends on Facebook (shout outs to Dana, Terre, Sami, Eleni, and DS!), I decided I would give it a shot this year. I started on January 1 as that’s the only day my OCD would allow. 
Check out my Picture a Day Tumblr blog for progress (I’ll definitely take a picture every day, but we’ll see if I manage to post one every day too).
That’s it for now, look for the very first Potato Chip Math / Tales of Whoa flash fiction contest on Wednesday, January 8!
~ Andrew