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Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 19: Banquet for the Lost

This is the 19th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

Banquet for the Lost, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 20th December 2012

Word count: 977

Theme: drama, families, atonement, reunion, discovery, history

The story:

Katherine smoothed off her red dress, though the material was sheer and seemed immune to creasing, it was a self concious act. Katherine felt seriously out of her depth right now.

“Relax, you’ll be fine I promise,” Luther said with that overly warm smile. He was a middle aged man with a German accent, he looked swathe in his perfectly fitted tuxedo, gold cuff links and just the barest hint of cologne. He was also a bloody good salesman, and Katherine would know she considered herself as a pretty good one, yet he’d been able to convince her, a perfect stranger to come to this fancy dinner party.

“Maybe I should go, I don’t fit in here,” she said, and it was true. As people filed in they wore the expensive clothes and jewellery with ease, most seemed middle aged, and well preserved.

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Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 18: Crewing the Spaceways

This is the 18th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

Crewing the Spaceways, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 19th December 2012

Word count: 773

Theme: sci fi, star ship, memoirs of a space pirate, the small details, exploring a point, understanding

The story:

“Right, you take the left bank of the cooling systems, I’ll take the right,” the engineer, Chief Rawlings said to his young apprentice.

“What I don’t understand,” the apprentice, John Bernard started.

“What you don’t understand could fill a billion volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannia,and still need an extra forest for more paper,” the engineer said snappily.

“I’m sorry I said anything,” John said, feeling embarrassed. It was his first day on the job, and only his third hour into the shift, and Captain Arsené Frassin had already called duty stations to alert, there was something going on, not that anyone would tell John what. ‘For a pirate ship, sorry privateer ship, they were as tight lipped as any military star ship,’ he thought to himself.

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Short Story: You Choose.

This was originally part of my daily challenge initiative, however I really enjoyed writing it, and didn’t want to try and cut it down to just a thousand words. So bonus day today, two fics. Though I’ve not written the replacement Daily Flash Fic, so I need to get on that right away.

You Choose, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 19th December 2012

Word count: 1,563

Theme: decision, god, alien, travel, choice, saviour, apocalypse, the one

The story:

You choose.

“Excuse me?” Roman was wondering where that thought came from.

You choose. It was a voice in his head, almost like that internal voice that tempered or tempted him daily, but it was somehow different.

“Choose what?” Roman figured there was no harm in letting it play out. Maybe his brain needed to tell him something.

You choose.

Roman gave up, and went back to sleep. He woke up late the next morning, panicked momentarily about the time until he realised it was Sunday.

You choose.

He shook his head in the vain attempt at dislodging the unwelcome thought that kept repeating. He went to get the newspaper from the door. Did hits usual, sorted himself toast and jam, and a pot of tea.

He sat there reading the paper doing his best to ignore that voice in his head, that repeated every time he read a bad news story. It went silent for the football results, and then he came to an article about a particular vicious incident at a game. A player had headbutted a member of the opposing team, but the referee never saw it, so it was on report.

You choose.

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Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 17: The Clarion Challenge

This is the 17th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

Stitched Up, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 18th December 2012

Word count: 1,000

Theme: sport, the one, hero, rugby league, dreams

The story:

“You’re in the big leagues now son,” coach Gilbert was saying.

“Thank you, thank you, I won’t let you down!” replied the young man by the name of Lee Brignall gushed. He’d just been told he was going to be in the starting line up for this Saturday’s match against the Warriors. It was a dream come true for the young Leeds Rhino.

Prop forward in a Super League XXV game, against the defending champions. He knew this was his big break, so he trained solidly for two days, before Gregory Matthews, current Captain of the Rhinos pulled him to one side.

“You need to take it easy. You’ve got a great work ethic, but save some for the game. We don’t want you injured or exhausted do we?”

Lee Bruce took it to heart and reigned himself in, he followed his training schedule and socialised better with the team.

“Sure the kid’s going to be alright?” Matthews asked away from prying ears.

“He’s got talent, just needs discipline,” Gilbert said. “He’s got something the crowd will love, an eagerness. He’ll help us win back the crowds again, and we need them.”

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Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 16: Stitched Up

This is the 16th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

Stitched Up, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 17th December 2012

Word count: 977

Theme: crime, revenge, suspense

The story:

Twenty years, that’s how long it’s been, twenty long years in prison.

Now I’m out, and staying out is proving far harder than I expected. I used to be the man with the plan, and I was worth my weight in gold. Then the people that hire me, they turned on me, set me up for the big fall.

First degree murder.

I’m in admiration of the plan, really, they had me break into the scene of the crime, while the real murderer used my escape route to get out, leaving me shafted, covered in the dead man’s blood holding the weapon, after I foolishly tried to save him.

I protested my innocence of course, for a while. Then I agreed to plead guilty in exchange for leniency. The judge threw that out because I wasn’t confessing to enough murders, there were several other murders with the same MO. Lovely.

Now I’m out and most of the faces I see are young ones, except for the three following me down across Oxford Circus. I might be rusty, but these were amateurs, I recognised one though which was enough to tell me this wasn’t the cops.

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Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 15: Cult of Amara

This is the 15th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

Cult of Amara, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 16th December 2012

Word count: 995

Theme: mystery, religion, chosen one, cult

The story:

“We who are beholden to the true one,” the acolyte said, garbed in his thick brown cotton robe, “I am yours for now, and forever, to command, for I obey,” he said lowering his head to the floor.

“Arise, you are acolyte no more,” a priestly figure said from a top of a high seat, he was wrapped in purple robes, so much so no one had actually seen him for years, “You are now a priest of the order of Amara, come replace your robes.”

It was a solemn ceremony, one which Jaximus, (his Amaran name), watched with trepidation. It would be his turn to be called next week. Once they had appointed priests just twice a year, then once a month, and now they were doing it weekly. The end must be near, Jaximus couldn’t help feeling, yet all the priests remained in the compound.

It was a very confusing time for Jaximus, he was having doubts, yet, he’d manage to pass the tests of the faithful.

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Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 14: To The Ends of the Earth and Back

This is the 14th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

For Her, Anything, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 15th December 2012

Word count: 728

Theme: action, adventure, treasure hunt, clues, mystery

The story:

“Fucking Wales,” Leron Ruiz swore in Spanish.

“It cud be wuss, it cud be france,” his guide on this leg of his quest pointed out. Nathan Smith was, what he affectionately described, a Brummie, he’d been helping Leron get around this country to some pretty unusual spots. As far as Leron was concerned all of it was unusual. A week earlier he’d been in his offices in Texas, he was a private investigator there, a pretty low rent one at that. Then a huge fish walks in the door, and offers him a boat load of money to track down some secret map.

Of course he’d refused, the guy wanted him to go to Egypt. There were professionals for that kind of thing, and if they weren’t taking the job then clearly it was for a good reason. Then the old man had been shot outside the doors of his office. Sniper shot the police said, at least five hundred feet. The guy had left the folder with the job details, and Leron may have forgotten to mention it to the police.

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Admin Round-up

It’s been a while since I did an admin post, probably because I don’t use my blog nearly enough.

However I’m definitely doing better on that front. As part of my daily challenge there’s writing going into my blog every day. Not just the daily flash fic challenge posts, I’m also working on:

Book reviews (I’m not good at these so I’m taking my time on my first one to establish what i want to get out of my reviews – otherwise known as the first attempt is already 4,000 words long and needs a good editing massacre)
Already one additional flash fic not related to the daily challenge, there might be otehrs to come, especially as it’s the weekend and plenty of time to write
I’m wokring on a full short story based on one of my Flash fics right now, and there’s several others begging for promotion to short story status, (either by sequel, prequel, or retelling)
I’m going to try and cover off some news stories and such
I’m planning a hand ful of articles based on my experiences for the first couple of months of the new year

So, now’s a good time to review how my blog looks, and how it works.

Since I used WordPress, themes are a dime a dozen, though finding one I like is quite difficult. I’ve temporary settled on one called Scrappy By Caroline Moore, but with a couple of modifications for a more readable font, a header and picture of Ilkley.

It’s absolutely lovely, but it still isn’t quite what I’m after. I just can’t quite find one. That’s fine though, it gives me a new challenge, along side writing more frequently. I’m going to try and design my own theme – as with many things outside of writing, and often including writing, it’ll be ambitious but rubbish. I’m willing to give it a go though.

Speaking of ambitious I want a nice theme that can handle variety too – that way I can use a plug in or something to give certain categories their own theme when accessed. I.e. a sci fi category that has very similar theme to the front page but maybe has darker colours with bright blue detail, and a header pic that’s a nice generic sci fi pic (royalty free or self created of course). Each of my main writing categories would have their own theme, ones I don’t use often would be left with the main theme, as would posts in other areas, (except maybe poetry).

It also comes with a second job, reorganising my categories and tags and stuff. Which is on my to do list anyway.

I may go through and hide some of my earlier posts that I’m really not happy with, and edit them up to be fresher, up to date, and not ridicuously awful – plus you know, quick win on new content. I don’t mean that purely as a cheat, but because genuinely they’ll need plenty of work, and be changed enough to be pretty much new.

I also need to go through clean up my plugins, and update my pages to be either more up to date, or less date specific.

Lastly, these jobs are not a job for my blog directly, but I need to go through and organise my Picaso account better, and arrange permissions properly. I’d like to use that as the primary source for my blog images and stuff. While i have plenty of bandwidth and stuff, it makes sure i have plenty, and should the worst happen and my site is wiped, not only do I have frequent emaled database backups, my iamges aren’t in the same place as my site.

Plus there must be a good plug-in somewhere that can conenct picasa to my blog to make it easy to share media.

I’ve also started a tumblr account, and a sperate twitter account, (thus seperating writing subject from my business/travel/random fun twitter account). While this may have no obvious advantages right now, next year I’m going to try and actually drive traffic to my blog.

Courtesy of the great people I’ve met on #NaNoYorks, there’s already been a big jump, (but in fairness they are lovely people, and will click most links you show them, even if it takes them to a animated gif of a man naked (facing away from the camera) jumping for joy).

So, that’s my state of the nation speech, covered pretty well.

If you had no faith in me as a blogger, lets see if I can turn that around. If might fail to achieve my plans – but I’d rather fail spectacularly then never have tried.

Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 13: For Her, Anything

This is the eighth in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

For Her, Anything, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 14th December 2012

Word count: 991

Theme: end of the work. unknown apocalypse, apocalypse, love, survival, violence, humanity

The story:

Dear Sarah,

Are you out there? Are you well? I worry about you and miss you. I was in London when it happened, I was going to bring you something nice. It’s five months later, five months moving from one wretched town to another, always making my way back home.

When the attack happened it hit central London first. I managed to evacuate. The following day, I broke away from the thousand of refugees, I don’t know why I went a different route, I just did. As did several others, dozens of us, guess it just seemed easier than being shepherded by the army to no one knows where.

Whimsy saved my life, you always said by random decision making would be the death of me, it nearly has three times since then, but that time, it saved me. The attack happened at mid-afternoon, we saw it on the horizon. All those refugees.

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Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 12: The Elementalist

The Elementalist, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 13th December 2012

Word count: 999

Theme: competition, sport, super powers, mutants, utopian future

The story:

I bounce on the balls of my feet, oan outsider might see a competitor warming up, in truth I’m trying to work off a building sense of fear and excitement that were ripping me apart.

“Its the World Championship, you’re allowed to be nervous,” that’s my coach Silenius Smith, I resented his calm, but he’s been through this, he was an old pro, maybe in his forties now.

“I’m just wired,” I tell him.

“No Rusty, you’re terrified, but it’s okay you won’t lose control in the arena, you’re more than good enough for a first round victory,” Silenius admonished.

“I’d rather hear you’ll be kick my arse if I mess it up,” I tell him, trying to laugh.

“No, that wouldn’t be fair,” Silenius said sternly, “I’m going to kick your arse in training tomorrow anyway,” giving in to a smile.

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