Eyeball scrawls: National Flash Fiction Day



"Blah blah blah blah."

Leggit!

"Blah blah blah blah."

This will be the sound of the #Flashtag writing gang tomorrow (May 16th) as we visit as many iconic Manchester venues as possible for National Flash Fiction Day. We'll turn up somewhere, splat out a very short story and then run off to our next venue.

It's designed to be a seven-hour, gruelling storython to persuade people to go to Bad Language at 3 Minute Theatre at 7.30pm.

Venues for the daytime tour are manifold and ridiculous. They include museums, university places, arty places, a spaceship (not actually) and a well-known Manchester swimming pool (yes actually).

There must be dozens of venues on the way. We start at 10am and finish at teatime. If you want to keep up with us, keep an eye on our #flashtag Twitter feed throughout the day.

"Blah blaaaaah blah blah."

Chase us!

"Blaaaaaah blaaaaaah BLAAAH."

Eyeball scrawls: competition judging

The #flashtag writing competition for Chorlton Arts Festival entered its final phase this week. We spent Monday night judging several dozen entrants and we announce the shortlist on Friday.

You learn a lot when judging a competition. This is what I learnt:

1. Words are nice. We don't like it when people use other things like rivers, dead birds and trilbies.

2. Oblong seems to be the shape of choice for paper when submitting to competitions. Four-dimensional entries rarely get far into the judging phase.

3. When reading aloud to other judges, there is no need to mention all the punctuation by name as you go along.

4. It's true. "Story" really doesn't rhyme with anything.

5. A one-to-ten marking system is fine: just remember that "now we summon ye hoardes of hell" is not a number.

6. The three most common themes of short stories are: people doing things; people not doing things; ponies.

7. There is no need to read any of the entries. You can tell by the smell if it's good.

8. When informing an entrant that they have not been successful, it is necessary to go round to their prison cell and hug them intimately for sixteen hours.

9. If you shout out of the window for long enough, a lonely crow will tell you the winner.

10. I maybe ate too much pizza. It has done strange things to my knee. And by knee, I mean brain.

Friction

Creepy Geoff came round, rubbing the teacups and wiping his legs on the door frames again.

We hid the best china in the stair cupboard, but it wasn't long before he was in there, rattling his elbow along the corrugated plastic of the hoover tube.

[read the rest of this in Adropiean Galactic Lego Set Blues]

At the foot of the rock

Zouis lived under the waterfall, his head in a permanent deluge as the sun bounced rainbows out of his ears.

Sometimes he lay on the rocks to dry on the violet banks of the river. With his back arched and toes curled, he swore he could feel his wrinkled skin flapping in the breeze.

When they moved the waterfall because it wasn't quite positioned to match the tourist guides, Zouis scooped puddle water into his face.

But it wasn't the same.

Zouis packed his possessions into a matchbox. He walked the path that led down the river that led to the desert.

The desert was large, yellow and dull.

He starred angel shapes into the burning sand and flecked off the skin deadened by heat.

The sun seared into the back of his brain all the craziness of humankind. Uninvited circles blocked his vision and he waved helpless arms to get rid of them. He tried to vomit the last contents of his stomach but he wretched until blood painted his chest. He licked his lips red raw.

Zouis collapsed at the foot of a rock at the foot of a dune taller than any waterfall he had seen.

He looked at the blue sky blurring now to grey and let his imagination deluge ice-cold colours into every pit of his body. He imagined and imagined until tears fell from his eyes.

The tear water formed momentary pools before steaming into the wind.

Zouis curled his toes. He was a waterfall again.

Eyeball scrawls: #Flashtag writing competition now open

 
The 2012 #Flashtag Writing Competition is now open.

This is how to enter. Write an amazing story no longer than 500 words. Then e-mail your story to us.

Simple, really. Oh and there are rules. It's all over at the competition website.

We ran this competition in 2011 to a phenomenal response, and it ended up with a drunken results evening where shortlistees got to read their compositions. The judges are the #Flashtag writing group, who are (and I can only speak for the others here) a bunch of talented, passionate and soon-to-be-bigger-than-a... um... very-large-cake writers.

It's all part of Chorlton Arts Festival and the deadline is 27th April 2012 so get scrawling!

Eyeball scrawls: Instant flash at National Flash Fiction Day

If you see me barrelling towards you with a mouthful of wordplay while you're out shopping on May 16th, don't worry. It's just National Flash Fiction Day.

My #Flashtag writing group will be tearing around Manchester all day flash mobbing the city with short stories. We'll suddenly appear, read a shaggy tale, then disappear into the shadows / side streets / customer toilets depending on where we are.

If you want clues as to our locations on May 16th, then make sure you're following Flashtagmcr on Twitter at the time.

It will all culminate in Bad Language's slam reading night on May 16th at 3 Minute Theatre. These events are part of a wider series of national events to celebrate the very short story.

Eyeball scrawls: Flashtag at Word Soup

The #Flashtag writing collective will be cooking up stories at the next Word Soup in Preston.

Word Soup: Quickening will fill the The Continental pub with shaggy stories this Thursday as my writing gang appears on stage alongside the award-winning fiction writer Kim McGowan and poet and author Angela Topping.

The evening is named after the smutty anthology we squeezed out last year, Quickies: Short Stories For Adults. There will be, of course, copies available on the night.

It will be my third appearance at Word Soup, having previously regaled them with Everything And Everything Beyond and The Yarning Of Good Whum. You can find more information about Word Soup at the Lancashire Writing Hub.

Longfest Breaktail

Eyeball scrawls: Invisible Animal Man

 

I have a new story called Invisible Animal Man.

Here is an excerpt:

I never knew loneliness until the animals stopped looking at me. 

You know how you can be at a party and still feel lonely? Imagine the same but with an ocelot snubbing you at the buffet. 

I tried lying in their troughs. Coming at them from unusual angles. I waved my arms as if my shoulder sockets were magic eightballs. Hey animals. Hey.

[read the rest of this in Adropiean Galactic Lego Set Blues]

I remember when this was all fjords

(Click pictures for bigger.)