Next week is the debut for Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction. March 5 and every Wednesday thereafter you’ll find a prompt at this blog to initiate the week’s challenge. You’ll have up until the next challenge to post a link to your blog.

How you craft your 99 words is up to you.  This is meant to be a friendly exercise among wordsmiths. Sometimes you might feel humorous and write something funny; other times you might be frustrated and write something horrific. Some will write into hard truths like warriors and others will gently catalog the wonder of fluttering butterfly wings.

The point is to find your true expression. That’s why the challenge is 99 words. The limitation on the number of words–no more and no fewer–actually is a key that unlocks creativity. Try it and you’ll understand after you’ve completed a few challenges.

Return to the weekly challenge that you are responding to and post a link to your response on your own blog. It’s a way to share our blogs in addition to fostering our craft of creative writing. If you do not have a platform to share your response you may publish it in the comments only if it is “business-friendly.” Why? Because my writing is my profession and  I don’t want to freak out any of my clients or promote writing that doesn’t fit my brand.

My belief as a writer is that writing is a business, even creative writing. My priorities are improving my craft, learning the publishing industry and extending my career as a professional writer. I want to meet other writers on the path to exchange ideas, inspiration and knowledge.

I also want to meet readers who voraciously gobble up stories like M&Ms. As writers we often think about what we want to say, but not who we want to say it to. The reader is as important as the writer in the art of written communication. Creativity is a dynamic relationship between writer and reader. My hope is that both will join in the Flash Fiction.

Here are the Rules of Play:

1. Flash Fiction at Carrot Ranch begins Wednesday March 5.
2. New challenge issued each Wednesday at noon (PST).
3. Response is to be 99 words. Exactly. No more. No less.
4. Response is to include the challenge prompt of the week.
5. Post your response on your blog before the following Wednesday and share your link in the comments section of the challenge that you are responding to.
6. If you don’t have a blog, you may post your entry in the comments as long as it is business-rated, meaning don’t post anything directly on my blog that you wouldn’t want your boss to read. Your blog, your business.
7. Create community among writers–read and comment as your time permits, keeping it fun-spirited.
8. When the next challenge is issued, I will post the response links to the previous challenge.

See you next week at Carrot Ranch! Lasso some time to ride on over and herd some words on March 5, 2014.