Tag Archives: typetrigger

Creative Writing: “Put Your Feet Up”

Here’s a creative writing piece I wrote over at TypeTrigger last week. I’m not sure how to classify it, exactly. It’s somewhere in between fiction and nonfiction. I just took the prompt, which was “put your feet up“, let my mind wander, and waited to see what would come out.

Enjoy!


Put Your Feet Up

Whenever I need to have a good think I lie down backwards on my bed, with my feet propped up against the wall, let the blood pour down into my brain, close my eyes, and just wander around for a while inside my head.

It’s tough slogging, I find, navigating my neuron clusters with all that blood flowing, but it’s far more interesting than going in when it’s dry, when my brain’s like a desert, with just a couple of lonely cactus-like ideas growing here and there. When my feet are up and the rivers are flowing the vegetation gets much more lively.

The first few exploring sessions I embarked on while the blood was in my head, I went in barefoot and was forced to stick to the shoreline, wondering what those big ideas were that I could see off in the distance. Lately, though, I’ve been bringing a good pair of boots along, so I’m able to go inland, where a lot of the grey matter is. Ideas grow like weeds in the grey matter, if they’re being watered well.

One time I tried building a raft and floating down one of my arterial channels. I thought it might bring me somewhere important, where I was storing a really great, unique idea, but I must’ve gotten caught in a current of some sort, because I eventually found myself floating around near the tip of my tongue. It took me hours to find my way back out.

One day I’m going to find that big idea, and then I’ll cultivate it, fertilizing and pruning and taking cuttings so I can plant more big ideas just like it in my back garden.

Until then, I’ll lie here with my feet up, and off I’ll go, exploring.

Flare Fiction: Volume 1

On December 12 I will be releasing my next short fiction collection, the first volume of a series I’m calling Flare Fiction.

Flare Fiction 1 is the first new product I’m releasing in support of the Diaper Fund.

There will be a pay-what-you-want preorder period, starting today, followed by a paid release period, during which Flare Fiction 1 will be made available on the Kindle Store, and then after that I will make Flare Fiction 1 a free (and pay-what-you-want) download.

Available preorder bonuses include the opportunity to supply a title for a custom 50-word story or a character name/concept for Special People, my new serial superhero web fiction project.

Flare Fiction 1 will be somewhat different from my previous two collections. Living and Dying and Feel-Good each include a selection of flash fiction, along with a couple of longer stories and a few poems.

Flare Fiction, however, is a flash fiction-only chapbook. It contains 10 stories, each under 500 words, for a total of about 2,500 words. I’ve decided to release my short stories and my flash fiction separately, moving forward. I realize this may seem to represent less value per release, but that’s the beauty of a “pay-what-you-want” system. If you paid $5 for Feel-Good, maybe Flare Fiction is only worth $2 to you, and that’s totally fine!

For complete details, and to preorder, go to the Flare Fiction product page in the Store.

Yesterday’s House on Every Day Fiction

Read my story Yesterday’s House, which was published today at Every Day Fiction.

I’d greatly appreciate any comments on the story, either here or on the story post at EDF. Your comments are always very appreciated!

I originally wrote this story in response to a prompt on TypeTrigger. The version I submitted to EDF has been edited and polished, and I expanded it just a little, but the core of the story is the same as what I originally fit into the response box on TT. Just another reason why TypeTrigger is one of my favourite sites on the web!