Flash Fiction

5 Things — What I Like to Write

Fandango7 Comments

Dr. Tanya, over at Salted Caramel, has this prompt called “5 Things,” where she asks us to list five things about a particular topic. For this week’s topic, she’s asking about five types of posts we love to write. So, in no particular order…

Flash fiction — I enjoy writing flash fiction posts, many of which are stories I create in response to word or photo prompts from other bloggers.

Prompt posts — I enjoy writing and hosting prompt posts that other bloggers can use for inspiration.

Non-fiction posts — Most such posts these days are about the lunacy of American politics or other current events with commentary, personal perspectives, and opinions about what is going on in the world around us.

Q&A posts — There are a number of bloggers who regularly pose questions for us to answer. Sometimes the questions are serious ones, sometimes they are a mixture of serious and funny ones, and sometimes they are all fun and games. I enjoy trying to display common sense, wisdom, and wit in my responses to such Q&A prompts.

This, that, and the other posts — This is a catch-all since there are no other specific types of posts I “love” to write. I will occasionally try to write poetry, but I’m really bad at it. And I enjoy Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday prompt, but that’s about it when it comes to writing posts that focus on music.

Blogging Insights — Real Events and People

Fandango4 Comments

For this week’s Blogging Insights prompt, Dr. Tanya is interested to know…

Do real life events and real people inspire your blog posts, and how?

Yes. I often write posts expressing my thoughts, perspectives, observations, and opinions about what is going on in the world around us. And when I write such posts, they are, of course, based upon and inspired by real events and real people.

I also write a lot of flash fiction posts in response to word or photo prompts or to whatever pops into my head. Sometimes the situations in my flash fiction posts may be loosely based on real events and the characters may be loosely based upon real people.

Or sometimes the situations and characters in my flash fiction posts are totally concocted from somewhere deep inside my mind.

And that’s what I love about blogging. I can be inspired by and write about whatever I want to write about, from real events and real people to the totally unreal figments of my imagination.

Blogging Insights — Best If Read By Date

Fandango6 Comments

Blogging insightsFor this week’s Blogging Insights, Dr. Tanya has explained two terms that, in the context of blogging, are new to me: “evergreen” and “topical.” She explains that “evergreen” content is content that continues to be relevant long past its publication so that it always remains sustainable and fresh. “Topical,” or timely content, has relevance and significance for a limited period of time. So, to me, she’s asking about the shelf-life of our posts. Do they have a “best if read by” date?

Here are her questions:

Evergreen or Topical content, which do you prefer writing?

I have three broad categories for my posts: prompts that I host, flash fiction post that I write often in response to other bloggers’ prompts, and political posts. I would say that my flash fiction and all of my prompt posts except for “Who Won the Week?” are evergreen. And I like writing them all and, in all modesty aside, I consider all of my posts to stand the test of time.

On the surface, one might categorize my political posts as “topical.” But I would argue that, while they represent what might be a snapshot in time, that doesn’t mean that they have become irrelevant over time. In my Flashback Friday prompt, for example, I have gone all the way back to 2005, when I first started blogging, and revisited some of my political posts from those years. Although the people I wrote about back then are different and the events at the time I wrote those posts don’t necessarily reflect what is happening in our world today, I think they still represent a relevant look back at what was going on during those times and are reflective of my perspectives.

Which do you write most often?

I’ve been writing a lot of political posts during the Trump error (not a typo), particularly over the past year. I will likely continue to do so until Inauguration Day on January 20th because, no doubt, Trump and his minions will be pulling out all the stops to cast doubt upon the election and to tarnish the legitimacy Biden’s historic win. That’s because they care more about their own unenlightened self-interests than they care about the fate and welfare of America. I’m hoping that after January 20th, I will be writing fewer political rants.

Which of these adds more value or engagement to your blog?

I’ll have to leave that up to the readers of my blog. As they say, value and engagement are in the eyes of the beholder. Or something like that.

Blogging Insights — Comfort Zone

Fandango13 Comments

Blogging insightsDr. Tanya is seeking more Blogging Insights from our community of bloggers. She said that she read lots of posts and watched many videos on blogging, most of which advised that selecting a niche is essential for a blog to be a success. A niche means a particular subject or genre. People become expert at writing in a particular form and subject. Today’s question is about stretching your wings and flying beyond your comfort zone.

Do you ever ‘stretch’ (i.e.,expand your horizons) by writing outside your comfort zone? If not, why not?

I really don’t have a specific niche for my blog. My “comfort zone” is essentially whatever occurs to me. Sometimes I write about politics. Sometimes about religion. Sometimes about society and what’s going in my country and the world.

My comfort zone also includes responding to other bloggers’ prompts, be they song prompts, word prompts, or photo prompts, and I use these prompts for writing flash fiction posts. I even generate a few prompts of my own as fodder for other bloggers to use to stimulate their imaginations and creativity.

But Dr. Tanya’s question isn’t about what is inside my comfort zone, it’s about whether or not I stretch myself and wander outside of it. My answer is not often. My comfort zone is prose, yet I have, on a few unfortunate occasions, attempted to write poems — mostly very bad poems. So bad, in fact, that anyone who knows anything about poetry would be hard pressed to even label my feeble, misguided, and failed attempts to venture into writing poems to be poetry.

Does that answer the question?
If not, I have a suggestion
That is for your own protection
So please pay close attention
And organize an intervention
With the very good intention
Of bringing about a cessation
To this unwanted expression
And I will offer my confession
I disabuse myself of an impression
That I have in my possession
The ability and skill to write a poem

F is for Flash Fiction

Fandango30 Comments

3CB9B5CE-9A17-487D-AC95-CB46590B5F5EThe tagline for my blog is “Random Musings on Life, Society, and Politics.” But something is missing from that tagline. Since I started this blog in May 2017, I’ve published 2,670 posts. According to my categories count, 534 are about “Life,” 348 are about “Politics,” and 0 — yes, zero — are about “Society.” In fact, “Society” isn’t even a distinct category on my blog.

The category on my blog with the most posts, 1,103 of them, is “Flash Fiction.” Many, but not all, of my flash fiction posts are written in response to prompts — word prompts, photo prompts, miscellaneous writing prompts, and combinations thereof.

I really enjoy exercising my imagination and creativity when I write flash fiction. It’s actually more fun to make up fictional tales in my head than it is to deal with real world realities. And to be honest, writing flash fiction often serves as a much needed distraction from life, society, and politics, which these days can be very disturbing.

So I suppose I could update my tagline to include flash fiction. But “Random Musings on Life, Society, and Politics, Plus a Lot of Flash Fiction” sounds kind of awkward, don’t you think?

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