You can read my story on Friday Flash Fiction here
I found out over the weekend that my story has been Highly Commended by the Friday Flash Fiction judges. Chuffed.
Update on 31 Stories of Writing
Well, we’re half way through the month, and although I have given myself the weekends off, I have managed to write 10 new flashes (some more complete than others) and have been writing something every weekday (poetry today). I even added my flashing as a tip on the Bridport Prize Facebook page Perhaps a little cheeky when I had just started doing it, but there is a bundle of books at stake!
If you enjoy reading my stories, remember I have a few publications on Amazon (Kindle and paperback), or you could buy me a virtual coffee here – all this blogging is thirsty work.
Many people decide to do NaNoWriMo in November where you set yourself a target to write every day and have a new novel drafted by the end of the month. I have flirted with the idea a couple of times, but always find myself in the middle of a project at that time and don’t want to put it aside to start something new.
Instead, this month, I have set myself a rather gentler target. I follow Friday Flash Fiction and they are currently running their annual flash competition, so yesterday I sat down and wrote and submitted a short piece. Today, I wrote something another flash. That gave me the idea to write at least a 75 word piece every day in August.
Now I know that doesn’t sound much, but I find that breaking the duck of words written helps propel me forward. I scribble something on a bit of paper, which maybe sparks another idea, or I will come to my computer, and while I’m here, I might as well dig out that story that needs finished/edited, and do that too. So hopefully from having a bit of discipline, and setting just a tiny goal that should be achievable, even with my chaotic life, I will get to the end of the month with lots of words (and maybe I can mine a few gems).
A phone call from a writer friend (hi, Charlie Gracie) made me pull out all the stops to submit a story to a book called Five Glasgow Stories. The good news is that both Charlie and I made the cut and we will both be reading from the book next Wednesday, 5 April 2023 at 7pm at 226 Gallowgate, Glasgow.
More good news is that I have finished proofreading my new collection of short stories Forgotten Dreams and it is now on Amazon (with Kindle edition to follow).
In the process of proofreading the book, which is a collection of stories that I have had published in a variety of magazines over the years, I realised that I kept using the same character names. This is fine when they are standalone stories, but when you are reading the collection, I don’t want you assuming or wondering if the same characters appear in different stories. You could say that I lack imagination, but in my defence, many of the stories are set at a time (characters born from roughly the 1970s onwards) when everyone did seem to be called David, Sandra or Margaret.
Yesterday, with the help of some Googling of names, I managed to rename people, allowing the significant characters to keep their assigned names, while the minor characters were quickly taken along to the Deed Poll office to get their names changed. It is definitely easier when I have to think up names for my younger characters – my children’s schoolmates have their names pillaged.
Other News
I also started a five day challenge yesterday, called 555. The aim is to write exactly 100 words of creative non-fiction on a given theme every day. The themes were given in advance, so I decided to get a head start on Day One. During the webinar by Nicole Breit, however, I was prompted to write about a favourite thing from childhood. I scribbled something down during the exercise and revisited it today. More Googling brought up the same make of doll’s house that we had, and that I was writing about. I also found the metal furniture for sale on Ebay, but the memories of my sister impaling her foot on an upturned TV stand reminded me of how dangerous kid’s toys were in the 70s. It’s a wonder we survived.
Last thing, for today anyway, I have another flash fiction up on the Friday Flash Fiction site https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories (you might need to scroll down to find mine on the theme of Traditions, called How It Is Done).
She forgets her age and runs up the white slopes, interacting as the sign permits her to. On the next level she stops at a wooden stool. Blankets, neatly folded: lambswool tartan, beige and pink; coarse battlefield grey; blue waffle from a hospital ward. A teenage tut. ‘Call that art?’
Every month the Scottish Book Trust puts up a prompt for a 50-word story. This was my unsuccessful entry from last month. I rather like it. It was inspired by a trip a few years ago to Tate Liverpool.
This month’s prompt is a story that features a blackbird.
I can’t tell you how delighted I am to be in Popshot Quarterly – my flash fiction is beautifully illustrated by Andrea Iris who has managed to get all of the elements of my story into her picture – a wallet, a watch and some keys.
My second flash fiction for the Friday Flash Fiction Edinburgh Festival competition is now online at Friday Flash Fiction. It is called Gifts for Him posted on the 7th of August. There is a companion piece called Gifts for Her, posted on the 6th of August.
It would be great if you could add a wee comment below the stories letting me know what you think.
You can read my flash fiction Gifts for Her at Friday Flash Fiction If you are scrolling through, it is dated the 06/08/21. As ever, if you like it, it would be great if you could leave a comment on the website and if you like it ‘like’ it. If you are feeling generous, you could do a wee retweet https://twitter.com/FridayFlashFict or @colettecoen
I have just submitted the companion piece – Gifts for Him – hopefully they post that one too.
Colette Coen has been widely published online and in print, most recently in Five Glasgow Stories. Her new collection of short stories Forgotten Dreams is available on Amazon. She lives in East Renfrewshire where she runs Beech Editorial Services. Buy her a red wine (or a coffee) and she will tell you a story. https://colettecoen.wordpress.com
Colette Coen 