No, no, no – not me! I am full of cheer (despite/because of a certain someone suggesting I was a werewolf -which made me chuckle a lot: see previous post’s comments). It’s the title of my story which has just gone live over at Six Sentences.
An Unhappy Man
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Excellent Six, Nik. Now it’s new moon tonight. Does that mean you have the night off?
Thanks Sarah. Owoooooo yes, night off tonight. ;)Nik
Just had a look Nik. Really good piece:-)
Thanks Lane!Nik
Excellent flash, Nik, very poetic, very timely!
Thanks, T! Sadly I reckon things like this are always timely. I wish they weren’t.Nik
Nik… this six sentence flash is, I think, something bigger and a little shoe-horned into what it is. I think you could work this into something bigger, something more. I find that with some of my own denser flashes, that really they are a story in embryo and just wanting to be born and delivered into the world.A concern for me here was the structural repetition, and ‘but’ and ‘so’… a little too much for me… and it was what suggested to me that this was much more than just a six sentence flash.Just thinking out loud… and only becuase there was something here that I really liked.Best D
Thanks Douglas, and always a pleasure to see you here. I know exactly what you mean; anything that has such a rigid structure demands, um, compromise. Which is fine and a different sort of challenge, one I really enjoyed. Instead of creating a really great story, you’ve got to try to create a really great story that fits into six sentences. The ‘but’ and ‘so’ thing’s an interesting one in that, that’s how the story came out. The vocab seemed to represent, to me at least, the lack of stimulation/opportunity for the character. Not that I don’t take your point!And to be honest I doubt it’ll grow into anything else – that story’s been told, in my eyes – there are plenty more to come. I hope. ;)Nik
Oh, I am so sure there are thousands more stories to come out of that creative head of yours, Nik… and maybe throwing it down as flash means this one has been told… but I find that sometimes a flash begs to be fleshed out and those of mine that I have added meat to have been amongst my best pieces.I am a regular to Sarah Salway’s blog just now and she is posting pictures for people to do 50 word flashes to… and for me it is like testing the water with my toe before seeing if I will plunge in. Some of what I produce are just ‘throw-away’ things… fun in the composition, but that’s it… but then something produced just fires me into doing a bigger piece that I just know would never have come out of my head without the flashing process.I wrote 50 words about a woman who collected the bark of dead trees, which she burned and the soot she made into ink and use to write letters to a spurned lover… and this led me to investigate the chinese method of making ink… and paper… and the ink-stones and the brushes for writing… and a whole story was born.I think Unhappy Man, needs only a voice and then the rest is just the writing of it… all the really hard work has been done… but it has to fire you, otherwise there’s no point.Look forward to reading more of your work soon.Best alwaysD
Hi Douglas, Yes I’ve been really enjoying Sarah’s 50 worders of late. That kind of thing (doing throwaway things for fun), like you say, can definitely bring loads of different ideas out and in an unusually organic way. I love that process of one thing leading to something completely different, that one otherwise would never have thought of – and I love the idea of collecting bark from dead trees – to ink – to Chinese brushes. That’s magic, isn’t it!And finding a new place where ideas come from’s magic too.But as for the Unhappy chappy, I think he’s done. You’re right, you do need to be excited about something to start it and do it justice, and for me, here, now, there are too many other things I’m excited about. I’d never say never though!Always great to chat and to get a point of view that isn’t my own!CheersNik
Excellent little piece Nik. I liked it. Well done 🙂
Hey Gillian, cool to see you here. Thank you very much.Nik 😉