During my days in graduate school, I toyed with the idea of writing a novel. I wasn’t quite convinced I could do it, or that my writing was ‘good enough.’ I decided to sign up for a Flash Fiction contest. If Flash Fiction is new to you, don’t worry. I didn’t know it was a thing until I decided to enter the contest. Each registrant had 48 hours to write a story 1000 words or less with a given genre, object, and location.
For the second round of the contest, I received the following prompts: Horror, Pinball machine, Junkyard. Below is my entry (PDF link), unedited, for your reading pleasure. I decided not to edit today what I had written then. Not only does it help me see my growth, but also, to show any of you who are thinking of writing, another writer’s starting point (I placed 4th in my heat). Being Flash Fiction, it’s only 3.5 pages. You can spare ten minutes of your time (I was going to use that as the title for this post but changed my mind). If you wish to see more, check out my novel, Weariland (slightly longer…).