Posting My Flash Fiction & Poetry Didn’t Kill Me (Opinion)

I started my blog in March 2014 with the purpose of creating a place for my fiction. I wanted to launch an author career and get my pieces seen. That didn’t happen. I procrastinated by writing a slew of nonfiction pieces and book reviews because I was too afraid to “step out there.”

While I don’t regret this, I didn’t feel fulfilled. So I started sharing my flash fiction and poetry instead. It’s no exaggeration to say that this decision helped me grow not only as a writer, but as a person. How? First…

I got over a personal stigma

As a child, I treated my writing as an ancient secret I needed to hide from an evil syndicate. I hid my notebooks in odd places—under a sibling’s bed (the one place they wouldn’t expect), linen closet, stuffed between the carpet and the floorboards—only to forget and have them found, anyway.

The fear of being judged fueled this stigma.

Not only did I see there was no harm but also humbled because I wasn’t worthy of it.

The biggest influence in any creative’s work is themselves. We tie our visions to our experiences, beliefs, and interests whether directly or indirectly. I never kept a diary, just my stories. So, in some weird way, I felt that I slathered my inner workings within my notebooks. Therefore, having them read was a very vulnerable experience.

But this was all irrational. What’s the point in writing if no one reads it? Posting my first piece (“Shadows in the City of Light“) was liberating. Not only did I see there was no harm but also humbled because I wasn’t worthy of it.

Continue reading “Posting My Flash Fiction & Poetry Didn’t Kill Me (Opinion)”

Twenty

The sun boiled his sweat. Air was like a thick mass in his lungs and if it weren’t for its necessity, he would’ve expelled it like a lump of mucus. Tendrils of heat wafted from the ground and tickled his exposed, cut legs. Everything around him was alight except for a distinct shadow.

He focused on the clank of his pickaxe as he drove it into stone.

The shadow shifted as if aware that he’d taken notice. “Have you thought of my preposition? I can give you whatever you desire,” it said as it had for the last twenty years.

Has it really been twenty years?

The pickaxe droned on–clank clank clank–pieces of sediments tumbling to the ground.

“Warm bed, not the rock,” it continued. “Your enemies to take your place. All you need do is say you’re mine and I’ll free you from here.”

The pickaxe stopped mid swing. Twenty years toiling. Twenty listening to the shadow’s promises.

Twenty

And it was all beginning to sound more promising.

Credits

Picture: Pickaxe by Samer Daboul via Pexels

Going out of Business

It takes a special person to be the failure of one’s lineage. To not only be the disappoint of ones current family, but also that of one’s distant ancestors.

Gregor would have to face all of them at the arcanum. He’ll have to stand there and let their digitalized minds know that the business they’d erected in the late 3000s and carried for a century, was going to die.

The particle wall to his office hummed to life as his robot assistant rolled in. The whirl of its inner parts were deafening. “They’re waiting for you sir,” it said.

“Here we go,” he breathed to himself.

Solace

Her headphones spilled music into her.

She closed her eyes and watched her thoughts shoot across the blackness of her mind, but the music stood in their path like a slab of concrete. They shattered against it, exploding into shiny bits and fading as if never there.

Credits

Picture: Shattered Glass by 412designs via Pixabay

Vulnerable, yet Beautiful

He passed her crossing a busy intersection on his way home. Her arms clasping her sides, shielding herself from the night’s air. Her dark eyes peered from under the sweater’s hood when he mumbled, “Hello.”

She looked away and walked faster. Rude, but he understood. She was probably like him, retreating to her sanctuary after a day of dealing with the world.

He saw her again on the balcony across from his. She was sweaterless, but the frigid cold didn’t seem to bother her. She was simply watching the snowfall. Vulnerable to the icy wind around her, yet beautiful.


Photo by: Filip Gielda

Written for: Bikurgurl’s 100 Word Wednesday: Week 104, Bikurgurl

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