Home » Posts tagged 'The TUFFest Ride'
Tag Archives: The TUFFest Ride
The TUFFest Ride: Winners
After one of the most challenging rounds of judging 118 entries from 36 writers over five 24-hour free-writes with five different prompts, three judges selected five writers to take the TUFFest Ride.
TUFF stands for The Ultimate Flash Fiction. As a literary form, it requires a writer to master spontaneous drafting, reduction, and expansion for a single story. As a writing tool, it guides a writer through revision to get to the heart of a story or the point of an idea. The TUFFest Ride is a writing contest that invites a small group of writers to exhibit their skills to master the process publicly.
The first task of TUFF is to free-write. That means to draft a story from scratch. It’s a demonstration of creative instinct, pushing into the unknown to retrieve a possible story. To help spark an idea, writers followed the lead of a prompt: mudslide.
The second task of TUFF is to explore. The 99-word format is long enough to write a concise and compelling story or scene, and yet short enough to write several to explore different options, including point of view. POV is the voice of narration, which is not always the voice of the protagonist. Sometimes, in third person, an author can craft multiple POV characters. Writing a flash fiction from a different POV can lead to a more profound sense of the story or draw out a hidden nugget.
The Third task of TUFF is to focus the central idea. 59 words are the heart of a story, the synopsis of a novel, or the pitch to an idea. It has enough of the elements to be complete. Its purpose is to teach the critical rule of revision — know what each story, scene or chapter is about. The writer keeps the essential elements in this task, including any new insights from exploring with 99 words.
The fourth task of TUFF is to punch the reader. These 9 words are the hook or can be the opening sentence (or sequence). All the emotion from the heart of the story is packed into this last reduction. The purpose is to hook the reader to read more emotionally. Mastering the hook gives a writer an edge and teaches the writer to come out fighting for the reader’s attention. Punch ‘em in the gut with this line.
Each task of TUFF is pure writing. Revision is about writing, not editing. The purpose of the TUFF process is to show how a writer revises through drafting, reduction, and rewriting. Editing happens after you revise. How often have you heard or read, “turn off your inner critic” when you write? That’s because writing and editing are two different processes. It’s much easier to edit and to teach writers to edit — after all, editing comes with clear rules and tasks. That’s why TUFF has tasks to guide writers to continue to write without the inner critic and yet still getting at the heart and emotion and power of a story, scene or chapter.
If the writer has allowed writing (creativity) to lead the process, TUFF will produce valuable insights to inform the rewrite better. The rewrite is the second draft, but after having explored the potential of the first draft through creative means. TUFF is relatively easy to learn, although many writers may struggle because it asks you to set aside editing and trust the writing process. Creative writing can’t be taught explicitly in the way spelling and grammar can be. You have to experience it, do it, and do it regularly. This is why Carrot Ranch uses 99-word flash fiction challenges weekly. The challenges repeat the creative exploration task, and the writer who regularly plays along actually learns to trust their gut instincts (go where the prompt leads) better.
The fifth and final task of TUFF is to rewrite the original free-write (first draft). The writer uses all the insights gained through the creative distillation of the story through previous TUFF tasks. The writer is now better informed of the original story. And yet the second draft still allows for creative process; it remains open to crafting. Even the final task of TUFF is pure writing. If it isn’t, editing can stifle your inner writer. Set the editor aside and take the TUFFest Ride to the page. The second draft gives you more words — 495 to be exact. This equates to five 99-word increments.
Once you have revised through TUFF, then you have material to edit. Editing shapes the course of your story (it’s arrangement into a beginning middle and end, or into scenes that form a chapter, or into chapters that form a book). Editing the course is building the bones. Next, editing fleshes out clarity. It takes a critical eye to readability, rhythm, and flow. Clarity asks if this is the best word, the right sentence, the exact scene. Once fleshed out, editing polishes the skin or applies the make-up. Now editing can grimly march through the sentences slashing comma splices and questioning grammar. Final editing cares about correctness. These tasks take place after writing, not before and not during.
Stay TUFF and write on. The journey to mastery never ends until the master is no more.
In September, 118 entries qualified to take the TUFFest Ride in 2018. Laura Smyth and Cynthia Drake assisted with judging, highlighting the best stories from each of the five Free-Write contests. The judges further selected the best stories from among the top entries. Several writers stood out among their multiple entries, and the judges chose five writers to take the TUFFest Ride. Each of these writers took the full ride from 297 to 9 words. Three continued to the second draft and had 24 hours t complete it. Because they went through the TUFF process, the idea is that the second draft would flow more quickly.
Because 118 entries plus the full TUFFest Ride of the Fab Five nets over 60,000 words, we will only publish the complete work of the Fab Five which you can read at The TUFFest Ride.
However, to acknowledge those daring writers who completed the challenge alongside the Fab Five, we offer you this Badge of Honor to proudly display:
Thank you to our marvelous judges, Cynthia Drake and Laura Smyth! Their guidance and thoughtfulness throughout the contest have made it a pleasure. We all found the writing of our Fab Five to be delicious and have our winner announcements. We met in Laura’s office and giggled our way through a video, showing why we call ourselves the Squirrel Sisters. Laura was relieved when she realized the recording was not live because I could edit it.
I laughed! I told her I didn’t know how.
And, apparently, I don’t know how to record, either. Afterward, when I shut down my laptop, I failed to save our recording. This year, technology officially wins over my best efforts to record. I can tell you we discussed how the process pushed each writer into their story. We talked about each writer, their strengths, willingness to be vulnerable and our preferences as readers and judges.
Judging is not easy, especially in a creative contest. In the end, we focused on writer strengths, use of the process, and the elements that compel a reader.
Cynthia stated, that as a dancer she resonated with Pete Fanning’s story. It’s one she could feel as dance steps. Laura pointed to the surprise she felt when she read Kay’s second draft because the writer journeyed with the character from young woman to deathbed (Cynthia and I teased Laura about being a poet who always goes straight for death in her writing). We all loved the lyricism of Bill’s writing and appreciated how he explored far and wide, yet maintained his strongest original elements.
It was not easy, and we squirreled away on many topics, deciding that we all appreciated TUFF as a process. Cynthia has used TUFF to process her goals to restore her damaged home after a mudslide (the theme of all these stories). Laura has had me in her Finlandia classroom to teach the process to her Composition 101 students. And I’m taking to TUFF for NaNoWriMo 2018.
Here is our final ranking with massive appreciation to all the writes and those who hung in the saddle.
FINAL RANKING
Honorable Mention: Liz Husebye Hartmann
Honorable Mention: Ritu Bhathal
Third Place: Pete Fanning
Second Place: Kay Kingsley
First Place: Bill Engleson
Congratulation to the five of you! We were blown away by your writing and the tenacity to push through difficult tasks and find the strengths throughout the ride. This contest called you to endure, and you did.
The TUFFest Ride Finals
From 118 entries, five writers were selected to take the TUFFest Ride. A few brave challengers have also followed the paces, taking the ride each week. The point of TUFF is to experience the shifts that occur in our writing when we revise. The process forces us to change our first drafts to meet the diminishing word constraints. In making those changes, we further explore our story and make discoveries and decisions. Lastly, we infuse the heart of our stories with emotion.
Here’s a quick look at the shortest stories from last week — each one is nine words and expresses a different emotion [set in brackets].
9-WORD SUMMATIONS WITH EMOTION by Kay Kingsley
Sapling nurtured, love grows an Oak death can’t fell [strength]
Unanswered dreams denied by fate suspended our love eternally [sadness]
###
9-WORD SUMMATIONS WITH EMOTION by Ritu Bhathal
Mudslide. This could not be happening again – could it? [Fear]
Fear aside. They need me. I’ve got to help. [Courage]
###
9-WORD SUMMATIONS WITH EMOTION by Pete Fanning
Whether fire or rain, they danced through the pain. [Happy]
Two souls, one dance. Muddy shoes, singing the blues. [Love]
9-WORD SUMMATIONS WITH EMOTION by Bill Engleson
Her spectre blazes in my brain, dangling in time. [wonder]
Mudslide! Low Tide!! Suicide! I have done your will. [resignation]
9-WORD SUMMATIONS WITH EMOTION by Liz Husebye Hartman
Everybody had opinions, but the mudslide called it in. [acceptance]
Dahlia embraces freedom as New Stuttgart is washed away. [disapproval]
###
This Rodeo contest challenged the judges, too. How does one judge the process of drafting and revision? We looked for tenacity, the ability of a writer to push into his or her piece. All five writers exhibited this trait that the masters consider more important than talent.
“Often it is tenacity, not talent, that rules the day.”
~ Julia Cameron“Fish,” he said softly, aloud, “I’ll stay with you until I am dead.”
~ Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the SeaIt’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
~ Albert Einstein
And that’s what TUFF called these five writers to do. Pete Fanning, Kay Kingsley, Ritu Bhathal Bill Engleson, and Liz Husebye Hartmann wrote tenaciously. Each week they met a challenge and overcame the doubt that dogs all writers. They wrote. And from the perspective of the one who got to read their writing weekly, I marveled at how each writer pushed through. TUFF creates a process for revision so that exploration and discovery still happen between first draft and second.
Too often, writers go from first draft into editing. By using the ultimate flash fiction constraints, writers can workshop their revisions before getting to the mechanics of editing, thus creating deeper and richer stories. It’s easy to learn to edit because it has specific rules. Creative writing, on the other hand, requires experience and the willingness of a writer to be vulnerable and uncertain.
In the words of one of our judges, reading the Fab Five’s stories and TUFF processes was “delicious!” Indeed, it’s been a month at a story smorgasbord, getting the privilege of watching the chef’s serve up flavorful dishes. But now as we go back for seconds, we only have room to pick three. Please congratulate our two Honorable Mentions in the TUFFest Ride:
- Honorable Mention: Liz Husebye Hartmann
- Honorable Mention: Ritu Bhathal
That means Pete Fanning, Kay Kingsley, and Bill Engleson have 24 hours to craft a second revision of their original mudslide story in 495 words (that’s five flash fictions as we define the 99-word form at Carrot Ranch). Email entries, following the same process with earlier challenges by noon EST Tuesday, October 30. On Friday, November 2, we will rank remaining TUFF writers as first, second and third place.
Also on Friday, TUFF Judge Cynthia Drake will be dancing her first solo with her troupe 47 North Belly Dance at the Continental Fire Company. The show is a fundraiser to help her with ongoing cost to rebuild her home following the devastating landslide on June 17. I’ll be reading some of my flash fiction based on her story and that of community healing.
The Continental has generously sponsored the Rodeo and all our prize categories, and they continue to be local support of literary art. We are hosting a unique Old-Time Radio Rodeo that employs tough (99-59-9 words) with radio script. It’s a portfolio opportunity to get a story professionally developed into a real-live, on-the-air, radio spot. I hope you’ll give it a go, especially those of you who have experienced TUFF.
The ride is almost over. Stay in the saddle! And congratulate all our Fab Five Flash Writers for a job well done this Rodeo.
The TUFFest Ride Fourth Challenge
By now, I hope writers have experienced the value of exploring options and discovering nuggets within the reductive revision of a single story. Revision is pure writing, but we don’t always know what we are looking to revise. When we reduce the word count, we force our brains to puzzle out what is most important.
When I read the posts and comments of our challenge writers, I can see the sparks of insight.
Writing calls to us through the discovery of meaning. Art communicates that meaning between artist and reader/viewer/listener. But before we can get to that sweet spot of communication, we must first discover the meaning percolating in our minds and hearts.
The writer who thinks has an idea perched in the brain. The writer who feels has an emotion tickling the heart. Both can feel like that word one has on the tip of the tongue — it’s almost recalled but not quite. TUFF searches for that word, defines the idea and captures the emotion. A writer cannot do this in one draft. And yet, who has time for thirteen?
Back in college, under the tutelage of Dr. Stottlemeyer, I practiced revision the way a pianist might practice — every day I wrote. And still, every day I write. But what does a pianist practice? What does a writer practice? We all grow weary of exercises because we want to hit the keys — piano or laptop. Our brains want to problem solve.
I’ve talked about this before with word constraints because scientists believe constraints encourage the brain to problem solve. Often writers who start to regularly practice 99-word challenges begin to feel more creative or experience breakthroughs in writing. It feels like magic, but it’s science. What if I told you that pianists practice to problem solve?
Writers can do the same. What is the idea of the story? What is the emotion? What meaning does this story hold for me? For readers? TUFF allows you to explore, discover nuggets and fix problems. It offers the kind of writing practice that affords problem-solving.
Of course, the judges and I have had to keep TUFF tough. Each week offers a new technical challenge. First, we offered a prompt that had to be included, interpreted or expressed. Next, we asked for two different POVs. Then we wanted one POV but with a nugget the second POV provided.
Let’s hear from our Fab Flash Five and how they managed the third challenge:
Some of you recognized a nugget as a brief insight. And you think that is the 9-word strategy. Oh, no. It is not! The 9-word challenge is not a nugget, though both might be expressed with brevity. Sure, one of your discovered nuggets might be offered as the 9-word challenge, but first, you have to understand the tightest flash fiction word constraint as a punch.
Not that I’m a violent person, but I do advocate writers punching their readers in the gut.
Pause for a moment on what we all learned in composition: crafting a thesis statement. It’s one of the earliest structures of writing we learn — to make a claim, or a point. It gives the reader an idea of what your essay is about. In journalism, we summarize the most important aspects of a story by opening with a lede. In creative writing, we begin with a hook. Write a book, and agents, publishers, and readers will all want you to “hook” them with your first fifty pages. Many fiction writers study first lines because it’s often the most important.
That first line (or opening sequence) is your punch.
In TUFF, the 9-word constraint captures the essence of your story. To come out punching, your hook must have emotion for that is what hooks a reader. The next technical challenge is all about crafting the emotion of your punch. It is not enough to rely upon a nugget. You must infuse a meaningful nugget with emotion.
FOURTH CHALLENGE
- Reduce the story to 9 words.
- Write it two different ways, using two different emotions.
- Use [brackets] following each of your two 9-word punches to indicate the specific emotion.
- Each emotion must be different, like [happy] and [sad], or [disgust] and [trust].
Contestants turn in their entries by11:59 p.m. (EST) Friday, October 26. Challengers can post or link in the responses. It’s time to come out punching with your TUFFest Ride!
The TUFFest Ride Third Challenge
TUFF (The Ultimate Flash Fiction) could be thought of as a tool. I think of it as a revision process, one that teaches writers through experiencing each task. The TUFFest Ride is a contest by which the Fab Flash Five — Ritu Bhathal, Bill Engleson, Kay Kingsley, Pete Fanning, and Liz Husebye Hartmann — are competing for first, second and third place rankings. They are the five winners selected from 118 entries submitted to five Free-Writes in September. We have other dedicated writers following along, playing from the “safety of home.”
It’s not that TUFF endangers writers, but the writing process itself feels vulnerable. We can’t teach writing from that place of instinct and imagination without risking the emotion and doubt that lingers within each of us. Editing is crisp, it is clear and known. Editing is teachable, knowable, less risky. But TUFF asks us to shed the safety of editing. Set it aside and write without boundaries. Go where your gut leads you. Explore. Push into the fiction writer’s answers to “what if?” and risk being curious even if it might mean you are wrong.
Last week we learned the purpose of 99 words — a tool of exploration. The technical challenge asked the writers to explore point of view (POV) by either shifting from one POV to another or introducing a different POV character. Let’s listen to a recording of our Fab Flash Five, as I read each of their two 99-word POV stories:
One of our regulars at the weekly Flash Fiction Challenges, CalmKate, has provided an illustrative example of the TUFFest Ride thus far and one that will help me explain the next task in the contest (or challenge for those of you following).
Rank Dank Mud by Calm Kate
Asleep at last, a brief reprieval from the relentless wind and rain … such a violent storm.
Then about midnight we’re woken by a violent piercing crack, what the … ?
Goodness that was the mountainside sliding downhill, trees, homes, vehicles, road, pets and people. The quagmire is astounding, the sight disturbing. The mind and emotions are numb.
Disbelief resides with distress as we try to get our heads around this monumental mess. No one can describe the sight of mud mixed with trees and torn structures. Buildings, roads and vehicles strewn about in pieces like kindling emerged in mud. Thick dank rank mud. We can’t believe what we see coz it’s just too horrifying to comprehend.
Facilities are out, power, water and sewage are no longer functioning. Groceries are scarce as we all panic buy in bulk. The roads impassable so no idea when help will get through. The shock and fear just too overwhelming to grasp or express.
Then with time and sun the smell settles like an unwanted guest. The debris, mud and waste all rotting in one ginormous compost heap. But there is no bin to contain it … this is our neighbourhood, our friends, colleagues and acquaintances.
All sounds are muffled like they are also stuck in the mud. We are muted, no one dare speak loudly, our tongues are tied. None of us will ever be able to block out that resounding crack and weird sound as the sky came down to meet the earth crushing everything in between.
Other than assure our loved ones that we were safe we don’t use our phones coz there is no power to charge them and what would we say anyway. Everything is the same dull dank colour and the smell blocks all orifices.
🥕🥕🥕
99-word POV #1 (Original) by CalmKate
A violent piercing crack wakes us all.
Goodness the mountain slid downhill taking trees, homes, vehicles, pets and people. The sight is most disturbing leaving our mind and emotions numb.
Everything is strewn about like kindling covered in dank rank mud. Power, water and sewage are out. The shelves are all bare as we panic shopped.
The debris, mud and waste are rotting like compost but this is our community … we are muted as we struggle to comprehend. Having assured our loved ones that we are safe our phones are off for emergencies only. No power to recharge.
99-word POV #2 (Different) by CalmKate
Looking down I can see that my minions need a reminder that they are mortal. To stop taking life for granted, whining instead of being thankful for what they’ve got.
A good old storm with a dangerous mudslide should remind them to be more grateful. I’ll make sure to knock out their utilities and keep them isolated and hungry for a while. Life has got too easy with groceries galore and light at the flick of a switch.
As for those damned devices they’re all so engrossed in I’ll make sure that they have to talk to each other.
What I want to point out in Kate’s writing are a couple of nuggets that emerged in each POV:
NUGGETS:
- A violent piercing crack wakes us all. (POV #1)
- Life has got too easy with groceries galore and light at the flick of a switch. (POV #2)
The first nugget exemplifies the power of writing concise prose. If you compare that line to Kate’s original opening, you can see how it still works and carries the tension of the moment. The second nugget could only have emerged through exploration. Had Kate not explored a different point of view, she could have missed this idea which offers her stories a pivotal point of contrast. Not only is her story one of natural disaster, but now we see an expansion of what can happen because of or in spite of an easy life — the consequences of complacency.
Do you see how 99 words allow you to continue to play in your creative writing without yet having to rein it to editing? You are still writing as you revise and yet you are tightening language, focusing tension, and discovering the cost to character’s lives. There’s no end to the exploration of play in 99 words, and if you take away anything from TUFF, I hope you understand the value of investigation that doesn’t take up a lot of writing time. No one wants to get to the end of 75,000 words and then explore a different POV! Play with it up front. Use the weekly challenges to develop your characters outside your novel to learn new insights.
Now we begin to focus. Now we cut away everything but that which is most essential.
THIRD CHALLENGE
- Decide on one POV. It can be the original, or it can be the experimental one.
- Reduce the story to 59-words.
- For a technical challenge, incorporate a nugget from your opposite 99-word POV (and bold that nugget to illustrate it).
This is a revision challenge. You are not only continuing to distill the original story, but you are also deciding upon a single point of view to carry your narration, and you are adding something you didn’t have in the original free-draft or the POV you chose to keep.
An example can be found in Kate’s illustration above. If she goes with POV #1, she includes Nugget #2. If she goes with POV #2, she includes Nugget #1. Of course, Kate is free to select her own nuggets just as each contestant and challenger will do. The task is to take a nugget from the opposing POV. You might have to change the nugget’s POV if it’s in first person and your story is in third. Or you can take the idea and expand it, not using the exact verbiage.
Contestants turn in their entries by11:59 p.m. (EST) Friday, October 19. Challengers can post or link in the responses. Let me know of any insights you recognize as you continue the TUFFest Ride!
The TUFFest Ride Second Challenge
Welcome back to the TUFFest Ride where five writers — Ritu Bhathal, Bill Engleson, Pete Fanning, Liz Husebye Hartmann, and Kay Kingsley — exhibit their flash fiction riding skills in The Ultimate Flash Fiction. TUFF is a process of drafting, revising, and rewriting a single story by varying word counts.
The TUFFest Ride also includes unexpected technical challenges. Like POV. All authors write their stories from a point of view (POV). It is the position the narrator takes in telling the story. Here’s a simple breakdown, although it is not a simple technique to master:
- First person POV: the character tells his or her own story, relating the experiences as they happen. Narration uses the pronoun “I.”
- Second person POV: narrates the experiences of the reader as “you” in non-fiction. Not to say it can’t be used in literary art or fiction; it’s just not common.
- Third person POV: the character does not relate his or her own story, but relates the experiences of another. Third person omniscient has access to the thoughts and experiences of all the characters. Third person limited only has access to the thoughts and experiences one or a few characters. POV characters allow an author full access to a few key characters while staying out of the skins and heads of the remaining characters.
When an author jumps too quickly from one character’s thoughts to another, readers have trouble keeping up. Editors call this “head-hopping.” Readers need a signal (a page break, chapter break, italics, etc.) to follow the narration that includes multiple POV characters.
Typically, in flash fiction, writers use one narration voice. But how do we know that is the right voice for our stories? The 99-word flash fiction form offers an experimental writing tool. It’s not a big commitment — only 99 words — and a writer can use it to try different POVs. Another possibility, if a writer is still trying to figure out the angle for the story-idea, a new POV can shed light on the story.
A different POV character might be someone mentioned in the story — what is that person doing when the story happens according to narration? Or it could be the POV of an observer. Second person POV could be a narrator telling the character their own stories such as a grandparent relating a child’s tale to the child, or a loved one telling a coma victim their story.
By now, you should know that this week’s TUFF challenge will include POV. The Fab Five (and hopefully some of you playing from home) all have a new free-draft that includes the prompt “mudslide.” All the challenges from here on out use that free-draft story. You are not writing a new story, but you are rewriting the original, and you can certainly go any direction you want with it. Cutting words is an exercise in concision but is not truly revising.
I want you to be brave and revise. I want you to push into your original draft and pull out a 99-word story from it.
The Second Challenge: write two 99-word stories using your original free-draft for mudslide. One continues the original POV. The second uses a different POV or POV character. This is your chance to see how flash fiction can be an exploratory tool.
All of the stories for our Fab Five will post November 1. However, if you’d like to hear their stories, I offer you a reading on SoundCloud. I had, once again, technical difficulties. This time I did get the video recorded but failed to upload it. I’d like a quick shout-out to Frank Hubeney who has often recorded flash fiction readings using SoundCloud as that gave me a secondary option. Hopefully, I’ll have the recording issues worked out by next week!
The TUFFest Ride Reading of Free-Write Entries for Mudslide by Kay Kingsley, Bill Engleson, Pete Fanning, Liz Husebye Hartmann, and Ritu Bhathal:
Let’s Get TUFF and Rodeo!
You can expect spills and thrills at the Rodeo. At last, we launch, late due to multiple technical difficulties following an extraordinarily long day at the Minneapolis VA Polytrauma Center. In the end, a Rough Writer drove all the way from Nebraska to feed me tonight after a day of unintentional fasting. I feasted on kale and sweet potato curry with bok choy and cauliflower rice with C. Jai Ferry (of TwitterFlash and grit lit fame).
Forgive the lateness of this post and the lack of video. My recorder died, and I can not figure out an elegant solution to videotaping on my laptop while also reading the winning entries. And I know that’s what you are all chomping at the bit to learn. I just figured out wi-fi connection at the Fisher House where I’m staying.
First, let me say this was the hardest contest I’ve ever had the privilege to judge. No one turned up with weak entries. The writers who all submitted entries to the free-writes stretched their writing abilities, pushed into the prompt and took risks on the page.
Right after the final free-write, my judges and I began the process of selection. First, we focused on entries that created a memorable impression. Next, we looked at writers who short-listed more than one entry and stories we all selected as judges. We had three clear winners and an agonizing time to decide who took the final two spots.
I want all the writers who submitted to know that each one of you drafted with creativity and skill to convey a story in 297 words. Even if you were not selected, your writing will be posted in a collection on November 1. I hope you will play along.
Finally, at last, the wait is over — please meet the TUFF Fab 5 who are about to embark upon the TUFFest Ride:
UNTITLED BY PETE FANNING (UNITED STATES)
Soon as we got to Nannie’s I hurried to the kitchen to pour a cup of her sweet, cheek-sucking Kool-Aid. I gulped it down and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. Then I set outside to spy on Grandpa.
Grandpa never left his car, an old Dodge that sat under the pine trees out back. Sometimes he’d sleep there, with his head lolled back in the seat, his mouth opened, snoring loud enough to wake Mrs. Wilmer’s dachshunds. But most days he just listened to the radio, sipping on Coors Banquet, banging his fist on the steering wheel depending whether he was listening to a ballgame.
I was tossing my football around when he called out my dad’s name. I dropped the ball and looked around when he honked, “Now come on, Douglas,” he said, “We’ve got a long drive home and no time to waste.”
He waved me over, to that old Dodge that hadn’t moved in my lifetime. The hood didn’t shut, and the tires were flattened to a fold. Still, I plodded over and opened the door, breathing in a gust of spring pollen, summer mold, fall leaves and a sprig of winter pine.
“Shut the door, Douglas. Hurry.”
I reached over and yanked it shut, cans scattering under my feet.
“There we go,” Grandpa said, hands on the wheel. “Gosh, Dougie, I didn’t think you were going to make it home,” he said, taking me in. A chill over my bones, him calling me that. All I knew about my dad sat in a dusty flag-folded triangle on the shelf above my dresser. But Grandpa, even with that map in his head a few roads short of an intersection, I liked him saying it. Besides, the seat was comfortable.
“Yeah, let’s go home.”
###
UNTITLED BY BILL ENGLESON (CANADA)
The tree is always there, taunting us, imposing itself on who we are.
We are the weak link in their chain.
I am the weakest.
I am often left alone.
“He’ll be fine,” he says, as I hear the door close, the slam, the silence, the crunch, feet falling on cracking snow.
I lift the window, look down. Iced air snaps in, smashes my eyes, freezes my face.
I glimpse the shape of them going to the car.
She hesitates. I wonder. Maybe this time.
“Its not right.”
He scoffs, “Christ, Jennie, he’s almost of an age.”
Of an age?
I am almost of an age.
“You say,” she says.
“Fuckin’ right. Where do you think backbone comes from? From you? From your kind?”
She touches the car door handle.
He stomps to the driver’s side.
“GET IN! It’s bloody cold.”
Her gloved hand lingers.
“JESUS! He’ll be fine. It didn’t do me any harm. Ever.”
She opens the car door, gets in, closes it.
The motor grinds. It won’t catch. Another grind. Then it catches, engine firing, exhaust swirling in the winter night.
They drive away.
I stare until they vanish.
His memories come in angry waves.
“Your Grandfather. Tough as steel. ‘The best ones are found as high as you can go,’ he’d say, demand I climb as high as I could to get the best Braeburn. I gave it my all, even when a broken branch shredded my skin.”
He flashes me the underside of his left wrist. I bear witness to the scar he wears like a medal. “See. A little blood. A little souvenir. That’s what life’s all about.”
I have no scars from climbing.
No medals for what I am.
I close the window, crawl into bed.
This is it, then.
###
LARAMIE BY KAY KINGSLEY (GERMANY)
The sun was just starting to rise as I drove east along Interstate 80 as the black dawn gave way to shades of gray and purple that marked the beginning of a beautiful Midwest sunrise.
Cars passed in intervals and my mind drifted mile after mile. I had been driving for 10 hours and decided I needed to stop, fill up and shake off the storm of my past as I drove straight towards its center.
I zipped my jacket up and wrapped my hands around my coffee as I leaned back on my car listening as the pump filled my tank with gasoline. As I had expected, the sunrise was beautiful and for the first time in a long time I let my heart feel a pain I had pushed down since I left Laramie in October 1998.
The controversy surrounding his death divided our town and the nation. When they found him he had been left to die in a field after being savagely beaten. Deciding I would defend him and in turn I would be defending myself, I was ready to have ‘the talk’ with my father.
I had anticipated anger, after all he was a religious conservative man but I hadn’t expected the explosion. His fist flew faster than my head or heart could react and with a broken nose I fell to the floor. That night I packed my things and headed west to California and never saw him again. That was the year life as I know it began.
I spent 20 years living a life of discovery, one I lived for two since Matt never got the chance to. I’ve forgiven my father and now as he lay dying, I make the long drive home. It’s time he knows it.
###
A GOOD RIDE BY RITU BHATHAL (ENGLAND)
Jody sighed and pulled on her helmet, before heaving herself up onto the horse. Nina cantered up to her, her horse slowing down as he neared her.
“It was a good idea, this break, wasn’t it Jod? An early ride totally blows the cobwebs away. I feel so alive here!”
Smiling weakly at her friend, Jody nodded and gave her horse’s rein a little pull, setting her off on a slow gallop.
Being here had given her plenty of time to think, and she had. But it had been a constant bombardment of memories; pictures flashing through her mind, rather like scrolling through the photo album on her phone. And every image centred around one person.
Ben.
The one person she was trying to forget.
Ben the bastard.
Ben the cheat.
Ben the di-
No. She had to stop this. She was meant to be forgetting him, not allowing his memories to become sharper with each day.
“Stop it.”
She looked up to her friend who had caught her up again. “What?”
“Stop thinking of him. I know what you’re doing. And it’s not healthy.” Nina’s blood boiled as she thought of the idiot who had broken her best friend’s heart. “And anyway, I brought you here to forget him! What you need is to find someone to help you forget. Have you seen some of the ranchers here?”
“Seriously Nina, I am not interested, not after all the shit with Ben. I’m afraid one little ranch romance isn’t going to help.”
“Oh, I know, but it wouldn’t hurt, eh… haven’t you noticed how that Jimmy keeps looking at you?”
Nina knew.
The only way this girl was going to get over Ben was by having a long, hard ride, and she wasn’t talking about a horse.
###
WHAT PRICE SUCCESS? BY LIZ HUSEBYE HARTMANN (UNITED STATES)
Once upon a time, summer sunrises warmed deep forest, from chill evergreen to clattering gold, edging our bedroom curtains with the nascent glow of unarticulated adventures. Ceaseless waves, having raked over agate and quartz all night, left hints in bits of driftwood and bobber, and precious white-scrubbed logs from distant islands and Superior storms. Bare feet scrambled over slick green rocks, gathering and grousing over ownership. Pale pirate’s legs wavered under thigh-deep water, ferrying those bones of raft-base to whatever part of the beach each had designated as “my spot.”
My Spot. My logs. My bobber. Ownership begins early, stains our pure blood with ambition. We soon forget that any pirate’s treasures claimed are gifts, not rights. Even Nature’s well is not bottomless.
Once upon a time, we visited the island’s one hardware store, padding from hot sands to cool dark, a single fan humming from a high corner in the converted boathouse. Its proprietor, wind-darkened skin folding like sail canvas around warm brown eyes and a mouth that found humor in our enthusiasm, stretched in dun and evergreen, beckoning us in. His hands were strong, each line traced by the grease from his last job. I breathed in heady inspiration from motor oil, decades of sawdust, and the tang of fertilizer. He led us to boxes of long nails and spikes, vital to our summer rafts.
I made my own raft. Tiny and wobbly, we were twin mermaids. In deeper water, the boys had their exclusive kingdom.
In this time, I roll back my chair and look out over the empty cityscape. My spreadsheets reflect in the office window, silent as the night office. My stilettos lay behind me, being shoeless my one compensation for success attained.
Papa’s bar was high. My memories wave me homeward.
###
Congratulations Pete, Ritu, Bill, Liz, and Kay! You will represent the Ranch in an exhibition write throughout the Rodeo. Each of you have won $25.
Each of you will progress through four TUFF tasks with technical twists that won’t be revealed until each Monday at Carrot Ranch.
Three of you will advance to compete for rank of First, Second and Third place. The overall first-place winner will receive an additional $25.
So, let’s talk TUFF. The Ultimate Flash Fiction is a process, a brain game, to reduce words to produce more. TUFF is about learning to go with gut instinct to draft and to then trust the creation to revision. When you free-write, you have to let go of your inner editor and write. When something feels uncomfortable, that’s a sign of writing deep. Drafting can feel vulnerable.
When writers revise, it’s not always obvious how to go about it. TUFF is a quick revision tool that writers can apply to scenes, chapters, and even entire novels. It’s a way to get at the heart of what your story of book is about. I even use TUFF to coach entrepreneurs to craft the story of their business vision. You can use TUFF to create variously sized synopses.
TUFF begins with a free-write. The first revision is 99 words, the second 59 words, and the third is 9. By the time you go through the constraint process, the story or idea sharpens. That allows you to go write the clearly envisioned story. The process will surprise you! Writers who take the TUFF challenge feel the shift.
However, because this is the TUFFest Ride, the judges and I will be reviewing each week’s entries and deciding how best to test the writers’ skills with an additional technical challenge.
All writers are welcome to play along from the safety of home. You can post your challenges in the comments. Due to the volume of words that the extra challenges produce, I won’t be posting any challenge entries. We will enjoy and discuss them right here in the comments.
Except for the Fab Five. Pete, Ritu, Bill, Liz, and Kay will email their weekly entry to wordsforpeople@gmail.com. Their full entries will be posted on November 1 (please refrain from sharing your entries on your own blogs until the judging is final on November 1).
WEEK ONE: TUFF CHALLENGE
We begin the TUFFest Ride with a free-write. You have five days to draft 297 words to the prompt: mudslide. Your technical challenge is to include at least three of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, sound). This is the story you will revise and rewrite as a final entry throughout TUFF.
Begin!
Remember: competitors email entries and challengers post in the comments.
Deadline: October 6 at 11:59 p.m.
September 13 Free-Write
CONTEST CLOSED
(Thank you to all the brave writers who gave this round a go! There are still four more chances to enter so get familiar with the process below. A new 24-hour prompt will be revealed September 19, 2018, at 12:00 a.m. EST. It will close at 11:59 p.m. EST September 19.)
The clock started ticking at 12:00 a.m. (EST). That’s midnight in New York City when September 13, 2018, begins. The contest ends by the close of day September 13, 2018, at 11:59 (EST).
This is a free-write flash fiction contest to qualify five writers to compete in the October TUFFest Ride event during the 2018 Flash Fiction Rodeo at Carrot Ranch. A free-write requires you to draft quickly.
You can revise, edit or polish. But you only have 24 hours which is not enough time to let a first draft set. We know that. We are looking at your free-write skills, your bravery to write freely according to a prompt.
Judges will examine how creative a writer can be within both time and word constraint. Charli Mills, Cynthia Drake and Laura Smyth all of Hancock, Michigan will judge all TUFF contests. Your free-write must follow all five rules to qualify.
RULES
- You must use the revealed prompt: “cool water”
- You must enter using the provided form below
- You must write your story in 297 words (exactly, not including title)
- You must enter by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on September 13, 2018 (use the form provided below or email your full name and entry to wordsforpeople@gmail.com)
- You must be willing to compete in the 2018 October TUFFest Ride if selected
If you qualify, you will be among five winning writers to further compete for first, second and third place in the TUFFest flash fiction contest you will ever enter. The event equates to bull-riding in a cowboy rodeo. It’s a chance to show your versatility of flash fiction writing skills. Five writers will compete:
- October 1: Writers tune into a live video posted at Carrot Ranch Facebook Page for the announcement of who will be selected the Fab Five from the September entries. These five writers will have five days to do a new free-write.
- October 8: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 99-word challenge to rewrite their free-write. They will have five days to write.
- October 15: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 59-word challenge to rewrite their 99-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 22: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 9-word challenge to rewrite their 59-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 29: The Fab Five tune into a live video to find out which three advances. The remaining three contestants will have 24 hours to write a final 495-word story from their TUFF exhibition.
- November 2: First, second and third place announced. All five contestants will win a prize (yet to be determined, based on sponsors).
WINNING TIPS
Go with your gut. At Carrot Ranch Literary Community, we play with 99 words, no more, no less every week. We’ve learned that our first instinct to a prompt might be strange or uncomfortable. The natural tendency of a writer is to water down that reaction — to write safely. Don’t. Be brave and go where the prompt leads you.
Be creative. Along with going with your gut, take a creative approach. If you are literal, you might write too stiffly. But do poke a literal response if that comes to you. Ask yourself how you can turn it upside down and create a surprising twist. Also, you don’t need to use the exact phrase (or the quotation marks unless you are using dialog or showing irony).
Be professional. We are all adults here, and adult content is a part of literary art. However, think like a professional literary artist whose job is to write. If you think shocking readers gives you an edge, think again. We live in a world desensitized by global crassness, violence, and inhumanity. Shock value is cheap. Instead, craft a clever twist, show intelligence and the ability to interpret the global theater. Make your readers think.
Write with emotion. You also want to make your readers feel. Characters give us all the opportunity to experience life beneath the skin of another. Literary art can share imagined experiences from what it is like to attend school at Hogwarts or be a polar bear. Invite your readers to feel these unique perspectives. Avoid stereotypes.
Breathe! When you control your breath, you control your mind. Yes, it’s a competition. Yes, it’s only 24-hours. Yes, you have a lot on your plate. But you have the right to be here. You are a creative writer — so breathe, read the rules, write, count your words, and enter. No matter the outcome, you were brave enough to write!
You can use Microsoft Word or use WordCounter.net to determine 297 words.
There are no entry fees, and five winning writers will each win a cash prize.
Thank you to our sponsors:
Openings Life Coaching
SmythType Design
Solar Up
Bill Engleson
Thread Tales Studio
And our Leaders & Judges:
Geoff Le Pard
Irene Waters
Sherri Matthews
Norah Colvin
D. Avery
Chelsea Owens
Esther Chilton
Angie Oakley
Helen Stromquist
Hugh Roberts
Mike Matthews
Robbie Cheadle
Anne Goodwin
Bonnie Sheila
**There’s still time to sponsor the Rodeo**
ENTRY FORM (email wordsforpeople@gmail.com for support)
NOW CLOSED
If you missed this free-write, you have more chances to enter. You can enter more than once. Next qualifying free-writes will reveal secret prompts:
- September 19, 2018 (12:00 am – 11:59 pm)
- September 25, 2018 (12:00 am – 11:59 pm)
September 7 Free-Write
CONTEST CLOSED
(Thank you to all the brave writers who gave this round a go! There are still four more chances to enter so get familiar with the process below. A new 24-hour prompt will be revealed September 13, 2018, at 12:00 a.m. EST. It will close at 11:59 p.m. EST September 13.)
The clock started ticking at 12:00 a.m. (EST). That’s midnight in New York City when September 7, 2018, begins.
No fee to enter!
This is a free-write flash fiction contest to qualify five writers to compete in the October TUFFest Ride event during the 2018 Flash Fiction Rodeo at Carrot Ranch. A free-write requires you to draft quickly.
You can revise, edit or polish. But you only have 24 hours which is not enough time to let a first draft set. We know that. We are looking at your free-write skills, your bravery to write freely according to a prompt.
**If you have a correction to make to a submission, you can submit a second one with a note to disregard the first. However, you may only do this is the contest is still live within the 24-hour period.**
Judges will examine how creative a writer can be within both time and word constraint. Charli Mills, Cynthia Drake and Laura Smyth all of Hancock, Michigan will judge all TUFF contests. Your free-write must follow all five rules to qualify.
RULES
- You must use the revealed prompt: “Papa’s bar”
- You must enter using the provided form below or email wordsforpeople@gmail.com with your full name and entry
- You must write your story in 297 words (exactly, not including an optional title)
- You must enter by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on September 7, 2018 (use the form provided below or email your full name and entry to wordsforpeople@gmail.com)
- You must be willing to compete in the 2018 October TUFFest Ride if selected
If you qualify, you will be among five winning writers to further compete for first, second and third place in the TUFFest flash fiction contest you will ever enter. The event equates to bull-riding in a cowboy rodeo. It’s a chance to show your versatility of flash fiction writing skills. Five writers will compete:
- October 1: Writers tune into a live video posted at Carrot Ranch Facebook Page for the announcement of who will be selected the Fab Five from the September entries. These five writers will have five days to do a new free-write.
- October 8: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 99-word challenge to rewrite their free-write. They will have five days to write.
- October 15: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 59-word challenge to rewrite their 99-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 22: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 9-word challenge to rewrite their 59-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 29: The Fab Five tune into a live video to find out which three advances. The remaining three contestants will have 24 hours to write a final 495-word story from their TUFF exhibition.
- November 2: First, second and third place announced. All five contestants will win a prize (yet to be determined, based on sponsors).
WINNING TIPS
Go with your gut. At Carrot Ranch Literary Community, we play with 99 words, no more, no less every week. We’ve learned that our first instinct to a prompt might be strange or uncomfortable. The natural tendency of a writer is to water down that reaction — to write safely. Don’t. Be brave and go where the prompt leads you.
Be creative. Along with going with your gut, take a creative approach. If you are literal, you might write too stiffly. But do poke a literal response if that comes to you. Ask yourself how you can turn it upside down and create a surprising twist. Also, you don’t need to use the exact phrase (or the quotation marks unless you are using dialog or showing irony).
Be professional. We are all adults here, and adult content is a part of literary art. However, think like a professional literary artist whose job is to write. If you think shocking readers gives you an edge, think again. We live in a world desensitized by global crassness, violence, and inhumanity. Shock value is cheap. Instead, craft a clever twist, show intelligence and the ability to interpret the global theater. Make your readers think.
Write with emotion. You also want to make your readers feel. Characters give us all the opportunity to experience life beneath the skin of another. Literary art can share imagined experiences from what it is like to attend school at Hogwarts or be a polar bear. Invite your readers to feel these unique perspectives. Avoid stereotypes.
Breathe! When you control your breath, you control your mind. Yes, it’s a competition. Yes, it’s only 24-hours. Yes, you have a lot on your plate. But you have the right to be here. You are a creative writer — so breathe, read the rules, write, count your words, and enter. No matter the outcome, you were brave enough to write!
You can use Microsoft Word or use WordCounter.net to determine 297 words.
There are no entry fees, and five winning writers will each win a cash prize. Please thank our sponsors:
Openings Life Coaching
SmythType Design
Solar Up
ENTRY FORM (or email wordsforpeople@gmail.com)
(NOW CLOSED)
If you missed this free-write, you have more chances to enter. You can enter more than once. Next qualifying free-writes will reveal secret prompts:
- September 13, 2018 (12:00 am – 11:59 pm)
- September 19, 2018 (12:00 am – 11:59 pm)
- September 25, 2018 (12:00 am – 11:59 pm)
Are You Ready to Rodeo?
To a buckaroo community, the annual rodeo was a chance to show off skills of the trade: reining a cow-horse, throwing a loop and dallying a rope, wrestling a steer to the ground, and tying a goat. Yours truly was the Goat Tying Champion of a long-forgotten rodeo.
I still remember the smell of horse apples condensed in the stalls where all the ranchers and buckaroos boarded their horses during the three-day event. My red hair sported gold yarn bows at the end of each braid, and I had a brand-new felt hat the color of a chocolate lab.
I’d been practicing with the migrant children down at the barn. We could all toss a goat with the same ease our fathers and uncles could take a steer to the ground — it was all about mastering leverage. After practice, we’d eat pinto beans and tortillas. Someone would pass around a homemade jar of pickled jalapenos. The cowboys all laughed as we kids tried to act tough.
My grandmother grew and pickled jalapenos every summer so by the age of six I didn’t even wince.
Practice and peppers prepared me for what happened that rodeo. I drew last and waited my turn to ride my horse as fast as he’d run from one end of the arena to where the goat was tied to a stake. I had my length of rope in one hand and reins in the other. I was fired up and ready!
Then, the contestant before me rode his horse over the goat, injuring it. No one had thought to have a backup goat, so the event temporarily paused as one was located. I don’t know where they found this goat, but he was bigger than any I had tossed. He was triple the size of the goat all the other kids had tied.
And I was the youngest and smallest.
With a click of the tongue, a shout of “Haw!” and giving my horse his head we flew across that clumpy arena sod to the Big Billy. I jumped off my horse, and the chase was on. I grabbed the rope, held mine in my teeth and grabbed my way to the goat. I wrestled and tried every leverage move I had learned. He broke free and butted me with his horns. I grabbed the rope again. And again. And Again.
Finally, I tied that goat and received the worst time that rodeo. That wasn’t the year I won the trophy, but it was the year I won the respect of my buckaroo community. I had grit. I had tenacity.
Writers have to have the grit of a buckaroo who carries his saddle between rodeos. Writers have to have the tenacity to not quit the longest ride they’ll ever have chasing publication the way bull-riders chase those perfect 8-seconds. Writers have to be willing to take down the big goats.
That’s why we rodeo at Carrot Ranch. All year we practice the literary art form of flash fiction in 99 words, no more, no less. So once a year we put those skills and safe writes to the test. We rodeo.
A rodeo is a contest in which writers show their skills with the flash fiction form. It’s an exciting break from the weekly challenges and an opportunity to compete. Like a cowboy rodeo, this event includes different contest categories to show off a variety of skills. The 2018 Flash Fiction Rodeo runs October 1-31.
Contestants will get to wrangle tight word constraints, tell emotive, compelling and surprising stories, and write across genres and audiences. Some contests will call for specific craft skills, like using dialog to carry a story. Other contests will add twists to the prompts.
The following Rodeo Leaders return to stimulate your writing this October: Geoff Le Pard, Irene Waters, Sherri Matthews, Norah Colvin, and D. Avery. Over the next five weeks, each leader will introduce you to their contest, judges, and tips for competing. Each contest comes with a top prize for the winner: $25.
Unfortunately, it was too big of a billy goat for me to get a digital book together from all the entrants last year. We had more words than I anticipated and much editing was needed to include all the stories. I do an anthology once a year, too and I was unable to edit two big projects. Having learned from my first flash fiction rodeo, I will post a full collection of each contest up to a manageable word count.
That means I’ll be picking the most polished and accurate. After all, it is a contest, so here are a few tips for winning or getting selected to be in the collection:
- Be exact in word count (use Word Press or a word counter tool).
- Read the directions, complete the response, and re-read the directions again. Revise.
- Set your first draft aside for at least a day. You’ll edit better fresh.
- Read your entry out loud. You’ll catch word omissions or clunky phrasing.
- Take time to polish your most important words — verbs. Use active voice.
We will be simplifying rules and focusing on 99 words. Each contest will offer a week for contestants to respond. Contests will post every Tuesday at 12:09 a.m. EST (set your clock to New York City). Contests will close the following Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. EST. We’ll be using the forms for submission. If you’ve been practicing the weekly challenges, this will all be familiar to you.
Now to add a bite of jalapenos to this rodeo!
How tough do you think you are as a writer? Got grit? Got tenacity? Got skill? Then you might be willing to try the TUFFest Ride. Now, pay attention because this contest is not simple and it begins in September. I’m looking for the Fab Five (yes, I have the Fab Five Leaders, but I also want five fabulously tenacious writers with skills).
The TUFFest Ride. Here’s how it’ll go:
- In September, writers will have five chances to enter a 24-hour free-write (September 1, 7, 13, 19, 25). You only have to enter once to qualify. Free-write will be 297 words (that’s three 99-word flash fictions).
- October 1: Writers tune into a live video posted at Carrot Ranch Facebook Page for the announcement of who will be selected the Fab Five from the September entries. These five writers will have five days to do a new free-write.
- October 8: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 99-word challenge to rewrite their free-write. They will have five days to write.
- October 15: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 59-word challenge to rewrite their 99-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 22: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 9-word challenge to rewrite their 59-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 29: The Fab Five tune into a live video to find out which three advance. The remaining three contestants will have 24 hours to write a final 495-word story from their TUFF exhibition.
- November 2: First, second and third place announced. All five contestants will win a prize (yet to be determined, based on sponsors).
The TUFFest Ride is a big billy goat commitment and a true test of flash fiction writing skills. Our leaders are eligible to enter, as are any judges. Leaders and judges won’t enter contests they lead or judge.
My TUFF judges are two of my grittiest Copper Country friends — Cynthia Drake, who some of you might recognize from my posts about the landslide that hit her Ripley home in June. She is living in our RV and beginning the long hard process to rebuild. Laura Smythe is our mutual friend, a New York City-educated poet and fellow instructor at Finlandia University. She’s also a publisher and book designer. By fun coincidence, she designed one of the books of a Rough Writer! They are both up to the challenge with me. And I hope you are, too!
Tips to strategize TUFF:
- Breathe. Control your breath, and you control your mind.
- Enter as many of the 24-hour September free-writes as you want.
- Or focus on one date and be prepared for the revealed prompt.
- Remember, initially, it’s a free-write. Don’t think, write. Be outlandish, surprise yourself. This is what “follow the prompt” prepares you for in writing creatively.
- Be willing to commit to the October write-offs if you win a Fab Five slot.
Next Tuesday, join Geoff Le Pard as he offers tips for his October 3 Flash Fiction Rodeo Contest.
Carrot Ranch Weekly Flash Fiction Challenges will go on hiatus after the September 20 challenge. It returns November 1. If you are not interested in contests, you can play as a challenger. Or check out the expanded Advanced Flash Fiction Challenges to do on your own.