Flash Fiction

Wikipedia says, "Flash fiction is fiction characterized by its extreme brevity, as measured by its length in words...." and, "This principle, taken to the extreme, is illustrated by Ernest Hemingway's six-word flash, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn.""
Go here for the Wiki entry on flash fiction.

I like flashing. Not the trench coat kind, but the brain-storming kind. Every piece of fiction starts with a flash. Uncle Hop is a flash, Vultures (or click here if that link isn't working) started that way, and I have a forty-eleventeen-hundred other examples in my 'old writing' file boxes. A flash is like seeing a small piece of someone's life and setting it to paper. You get to look at it a little closer and see if it's something worth exploring (the hard part is sticking to it and fleshing it out, but that's another post).

During the month of February, I was inspired by Rosie over at the Smokey Mountain Breakdown. She posted a flash every day for the entire month. Pretty impressive. However, I'm not that ambitious and I'm certainly not that prolific. I'm going to shoot for once a week. Maybe turn it into something catchy like all the better bloggers do: Flash Fiction Friday or whatever. But, today's not Friday and I have something to post. Maybe next week I'll try for Friday.

This is something that I dug out of an old pile of yellowing papers. It was printed from my first computer and has moved around with us for about 10 years. I think it's a great flash to start this off with. I'll post it in a fresh and spiffy post here in just a few minutes.....