“Imagining Writing Spaces” : Flash Fiction Friday

Hello. This is actually a re-post, the flash fiction pieces are from The Stories of Chantel DaCosta Tumblr days. I rediscovered these when I was playing around in the blog’s back-end yesterday. These two flash fiction pieces or sketches were originally written in November 2014 for FutureLearn’s Start Writing Fiction.  I believe the task was to imagine two very different writing spaces and experiences. I made minor edits to the stories. And  I want to play around with these two characters and make something of these short pieces. Happy reading!

Life on the Blow Up

On the bouncy blow up bed in the corner of the otherwise empty bedroom, Eleanor Soon sat down to write.  She wanted to add another chapter, at least, before she settled in to sleep. Or try to sleep, it was her third night in this apartment and she had not got a good night’s rest since moving. Fingers on the keyboard, Elle sat  she slouched over the laptop and waited for something to come to her, she waited for her fingers to start moving. But nothing came. She was far too distracted by all the noise around her.

Up close and booming, she heard the roar of her new neighbours, as they celebrated goals and groaned at losses from some sports activity playing far too loud on their TV.  It was Saturday night and at a distance music was buzzing.  And then closer, just below Elle’s studio, a woman was admonishing her son about the importance of keeping the sink clear of dirty dishes. These people invaded her mind and Elle struggled to resist them. She did not belong here, in fact she resented moving and hated everything about the apartment complex.  She tried hard to get into her fantasy sci-fi thriller.

She had started the story just before her move and she refused to include these new loud neighbours in her tale. She hadn’t wanted to move and was still reeling from that ending. Finally, she saw it clearly and began to write about the spread of the viral disease on vector 12DSOC, she got two paragraphs down on the page when she heard giggles of the couple to her left. Elle assumed that they started what may be far too loud Saturday night theatre.  Elle groaned loudly, then actually growled. Resigned she opened a new document and started to write about the depressed writer, in a crummy studio flat on a blow up bed with rumbled dirty sheets.

Fluid and at Peace

Across the way, tucked in the studio at the corner of Building C, Daniel Murray sat at his comfortable writing desk, his ear phones strumming Bob Marley’s Is This Love, as he crafted in careful neat penmanship in his journal the beauty he’d share his single bed with.

Danny, an  IT network coordinator, was immersed in his newest novella, his third eBook in the Inhale Me Deep series. Writing as Emma Brandon, Danny loved this work. He hummed as he wrote.  Quickly he had settled into the rhythm of his writing, building up to the point where Kaezia known only as K to most of the mother characters, would reveal to Brody that she was in love with him.

Taking a break, thinking through, he searched and played around to find just the right words for K.  Danny stretched and smiled. He glanced at the framed affirmation on his desk, “All that I want and desire is within me to achieve.” He had all he needed, he was happy when he embodied Emma. Inspired now, he could hear, see and feel K’s excitement and fear and lust,  Danny typed away with ease.

 Well, that is it. I am thinking of expanding these pieces, merging them into one short story, I can already see Elle and Danny meeting. Tell me know what you think of Elle and Danny.

I am so glad it is the weekend. I am looking forward to some time to just relax and read. What are you guys reading this weekend? I am doing the Writerly Yours #ChristmasReadathon. I am on book two in my tbr. I will be reading Sue Watson’s The Christmas Cake Café.

Have a great weekend.