Difficult Decision

Nothing like fireworks and kind words! My Dog House 150-word fiction piece got the nod from The Creative PTSD gal’s contest. Yes! I won! Whoot!! Thanks, Jo 🙂

A Creative PTSD Gal

This did not come easy and spent most of my night reading and re-reading the short stories that came in. I even asked my husband for his opinion (believe me, that rarely happens) and he was some help. Here it is:

If you would like to read the short story The Dog House and all the other wonderful submissions just follow the links below:

The House
The Inn of Eternal Rest 
Hence, the Exorcists
Marmalade
The Silenced Eyes
The Walk

There is something to be said creating something just from a blank screen and believe me I know, it’s not flipping easy! Every one of these writers (yup you’re writers) should take a bow.

Tomorrow I am introducing Fenton and the writing project that everyone gets involved with. Stay tuned!

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Entry: The Dog House

My submission to a 150-word microfiction contest held by The Creative PTSD Gal. This was my first time trying this and…it was fun!

A Creative PTSD Gal

If I ever need to view things from a different perspective and need a little inspiration for doing so, Walk the Goats is where I land. Reading through the author’s viewpoints on situations and working towards goals is mesmerizing. Tell her to break a leg, wait for her to enter stage left and become a member of her audience. If you would like to participate in the contest or share, check out May 10th’s post. A different perspective was promptly delivered from her 150-word story. Good thing my dogs don’t chase cats.

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The Dog House

He was ruined. Bewitched by that wicked cat who had warned him that if he didn’t stop harassing her, she would use her cat-craft to put a spell on him.

But he hadn’t listened.

She was good on her threat. He had finally chased her one too many times. Instead of running, she spun around and with…

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The Spinster & The Girl on a Horse

Miss O’Connor lived in a small, blue, clapboard house, around the corner from the library. It was a short walk: out the front door, down one step to the sidewalk, past a neatly trimmed lawn edged by two rows of pansies, then 52 steps to the library entrance.  It was a walk Miss O’Connor made every week of the year, except the third week of November.

She read one book a week.  The week of January 1st was always a book from the self-help section, read in an effort to quiet her inner qualms.  It was the perfect time to lead with hope and potential. In 1984 it had been The Road Less Traveled.  In 1993, Healing the Shame that Binds You.

Whiny Words

A song came on Pandora, a recent country hit. Two verses played before she stomped across the room and hit the “thumbs down” button.  Her ex-boyfriend had previously “liked” it.

“Stupid song,” she whined to her roommate. “Too damn bad we can’t “unlike” some of our stupid, whiny friends this way.”

Her roommate looked away and silently agreed.

Daily Post-Inspired: Song

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The Last of the Photo Albums

Martha sat with the photo album in her lap, a thin layer of dust drifting from the faded leather. She flipped it open to the first page. Behind yellow plastic she caught a picture of three children—the oldest 7—staring dutifully into the camera, solemn looks on their faces.

She lightly touched the face of the middle child, a girl with braids and dark eyes, before glancing at the photo to the right. In this picture, the solemnity of the moment was gone, the formality of the scene broken as the camera caught the older boy tugging his sister’s braid, her head jerked slightly to the side. The three-year-old had slid off the chair and turned his back on the scene.

Slowly she flipped through the pages, pausing here, lingering there, absorbing images of children at birthday parties, swimming in the lagoon, saying prayers at their bedside. Mostly the pictures reflected a happy time. After closing the last page, she set the book carefully on a settee, then turned to a pile of similar, dusty-leather-bound books and picked up the next one.

For hours she sat there, going through page after page, book after book, until the last one was closed on her lap. The children in this volume were older, 27, 29 and 31. In this one, joy was the exception.

Even when a smile was present, it felt fleeting, ephemeral, glimpsed; captured on the edge of the lips, like a bird pausing on an overhead branch, before flitting off. In those photos—where many frozen faces peered out—the smiles were few.