The Best Gift

Posted on by sereichert

As we move away from November, closer to the shortest and darkest day of the year, I can feel a collective sigh round the country. This year has been unlike any other, and although some of the turmoil is behind us, a mountain still looms in front of us. We aren’t even out of the proverbial woods on many of the disruptive and soul-shaking happenings of 2020.

COVID is still raging, probably more so because of the holiday season.

Racial Injustice is still scarring and poisoning our society.

The rich are getting richer (glad to see the stock market is so healthy while 1 in 3 American school-age children are suffering from food insecurity—are we still calling that kind of shit a ‘win’ for the economy?) The poorer are falling into depths of poverty they can’t begin to rise from.

The world’s still burning and flooding. Freezing and drying up in ever intensifying waves, destroying entire habitats and species within shortening periods of time.

Did I come here to remind you of the dumpster fire caught in a tornadic shit storm that is our world? No, I did not.

I came here to remind you that you are a vessel of light.

I came here to remind you of your potential to shine even in the face of unsurmountable difficulty and hardship.

I came here to remind you that your attitude, actions, and struggles matter and can make a difference.

Am I preaching to go forth and be a Pollyanna, ray-of-delight-and-positivity, spreading goodness and sunshine to the masses so that they can catch your optimism like gonorrhea on spring break?

No. Jesus Christ, no. Certainly not.

Look, we’re all reeling. We’re all coming up out of the dark of our own prisons. We’re all trying to find balance.

I’m just asking you, in the gloom and confusion of your current state, to get out of your own head for a goddamn minute. Get out of your own misery and extend your hand. Haven’t we been marinading in our own suffering long enough? I’m saying take a break—go marinate in someone else’s—(ew David, that’s gross).

Here—let me try that again—

Do something for someone else. Donate a little more if you can (be it time, money, or resources). Bring your elderly neighbor groceries or offer to put up their holiday lights. Send care packages or thank you notes to your local hospital for the doctors and nurses who are worn thin. Call your mom. Call your best friend. Hell, call your best friend from high school. (Just–don’t call your ex—nobody needs extra shit in an already rampant shit storm). Patronize your local businesses for the holidays and take out.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

None of that appealing? Not feeling THAT altruistic? Ok, feed the birds outside, especially on cold days. Spend ten extra minutes playing with your dog (but don’t break your foot—Christ Joe, do I need to pack you in bubble wrap?) or be ignored by your cat, more often…perhaps at a closer distance. Read your kids an extra story. Hug them twice as long as you normally do.

Still not ‘up’ for that challenge?

Then at least wear your goddamn mask, wash your hands, and give people space. Stay home if you’re sick. Respect people’s level of comfort—do not call it unfounded or fearful if they choose to be cautious. Call it a civic duty to keep others safe and to not create more hardship to our front-line workers and medical professionals. Being a good citizen, respecting others, and  thinking about the well-being of our fellow humans should never be seen as fearful.

That’s what being a light is about. Thinking about someone other than yourself. And that, my friends is the best gift you can give.

If you can do that…just one or two of those things, I guarantee something amazing will happen. The world won’t just look a little brighter. It will BE brighter. You will feel it in the center of your chest. You’ll start to see the world as a series of choices, opportunities, to glow a little warmer. To spread more joy. And I can’t think of a world more in need of the simple, small acts of kindness. No Pollyanna pigtails and sunshine yellow dress required. (Unless you already have the outfit and bitch you look fine in it—then rock that shit).

Go on now—get out of here and do something with your codger-ly, huff-ly, badger-ly self. Be a reluctant light if you have to. But be one.

Validation

Posted on by sereichert

Good Thursday to you, writers and readers. Apologies for missing last week’s blog. I could leave it at that. I could lie and say I was too busy. I could pad the truth and say I was feeling a ‘bit down’. But part of the problem with mental health awareness in this country is that we too often lie or lie by omission about it.

Last week I didn’t post a blog because I was recovering from an anxiety attack and suffering a depressive episode.

Wednesday, I couldn’t hold a solid thought in my head. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t predict when or how the next overwhelming wave of worry and tears would hit me. By Thursday, I felt like I had the emotional hangover of the century. The kind that leaves you with a raging headache. The kind that leaves you feeling empty and raw. Like you couldn’t bear to be touched, or spoken to, or even think of stringing together two sentences.

My anxiety was at a peak when I tried to voice my concerns and fears about the current state of our world. Some friends stepped all over themselves to shout out unsolicited advice, barrage me with guilt for not having hope and a sunny disposition. Tsk-ing their tongues at me for not being happy.

“Just smile” and “We’re all in this together” and all that bullshit.

If I had said I had cancer no one would tell me to take an Advil to cure it. No one would say I needed to re-examine my perspective to stop it’s growth. Yet, there it was, my virtual conclave shouting back all the answers I never asked for, simply because it helped assuage their own consciences. So that they’d feel as if they’d done their part to ‘help’ a friend in need.

And it got me thinking. About social media. About our current world. About what we do in our lives these days, as people, but also as artists, to find validation. See, I wasn’t looking for validation or rainbows or sunshine. I was looking for someone who was really listening, who was overthinking as deeply as I was. Who wanted more than a sound byte or click bait. Someone looking for a real conversation about our current addiction to opinions like ours. To admit that we’ve become so divisive that people are threatening others with guns, and running others over with cars, and all manner of horrible things because our individual perceptions of the ‘truth’ have been spoon fed to us by opposing sides in a virtual (read: NOT REAL) buffet of horseshit.

I’m not saying the truth doesn’t exist. I’m saying if you really want it, you have to make a concerted effort to seek it out. Know the perils of conspiracy theories and understand how to spot them, understand why they work on the delicate human psyche. Know that if something reads as degrading or judgmental of one side or the other, that it’s probably more opinion than fact and you need to get to the basic source of that pile of horseshit, not just take it at face value.

Where was I?

Validation.

Yep. So we get on the FaceBook and the Twitters and we read the sites and clips that these super-smart algorithms have determined make us salivate the most, and they keep feeding us the sugary Captain Crunch of news until we’re so assured of our ‘rightness’ that anyone not complying with our view is a contagious carrier of the ‘wrongness’. Then its only a matter of time before someone is whipped up into a frenzy and runs their car through a crowd of peaceful protesters or shoots someone with a MAGA hat, or shuts themselves into an oval-shaped office, a la totalitarian coup style, crying like a toddler about voter fraud.

Sounds like we’re ALL just a bunch of sheep. But why?

Well, darlin’, these systems are smart as fuck. These systems are designed to be addictive. They’re designed to validate our existence, our beliefs, our lives and choices. My God that like button is a sweet hit of virtual cocaine. The ‘heart’ and ‘care’ emojis? Ecstasy, baby. Someone out there LOVES you.

What in God’s name does it have to do with the writers and artists among us?

Well, as you know I’d left all that bullshit for awhile and was actually more calm and centered for it. I only recently returned because I wanted to have a space for my author platform. Because, and this is the professional side of this post, you HAVE TO have an online presence to write. Or at least that’s what we’re told. You HAVE TO build up an audience. You HAVE TO market yourself. Sell yourself. Get a following, if you ever hope to ‘make it’ as a writer. This is a new world. If you can’t roll with the changes, you’re destined to be left behind. You’ll never sell any books the old way, idiot!

What do you want to do? Just write?

Just write.

Just write?

Because you love it. Because you…never…started writing for the profit…you just liked to write….

Wait…you liked to write?

See it’s all a big system. We spend so much of our energy, our time, our lives, our hearts, trying to forge these connections in a world that–by all intents and purposes, DOESN’T REALLY EXIST. We base our worth on likes. On followers. On the number of hits our website gets. And then wonder why we feel so empty and disconnected and never quite enough.

I’m off social media; for reals. You may still see a profile pic pop up across the Internet-o-sphere, but you won’t find my content behind it. My website contract ends in February. I’m not sure I’ll renew it. I started my platform because I was told I had to, in order to reach more readers.

Do I want people to read my work? Sure, if they enjoy it…if it feeds their soul and serves their happiness, absolutely.

Do I want to expose too-big-for-its-own-good heart and threaten my well being to do that? No. Not anymore. I want to write. My time is finite. I will not be around forever. When I’m gone, my books, my poetry, my writing, will all remain. My Facebook account will be deactivated. I will stop being worthwhile to their algorithm when I’m dead. But what I write, what I put on paper will carry on (if anyone still reads books by then).

I urge you to examine your life. Examine your addictions. Do you control the content of your life, or is it being controlled for you? Is that content controlling how you live your life? What you believe?

Blog posts here will continue until February. I’ll be re-running old favorites as well as interjecting some poetry here and there. I already paid for the year, I might as well use it to share the things I love.

Take care. Really…I mean that. Take care of yourself. Your real-life, human self. You are one of one. You’re more than just 1’s and 0’s in a giant marketing scheme. Go be a real-life human. Do real-life human things. Walk outside, go for a run, read a book, write something, nap, work, make love, eat amazing food–and don’t post a goddamn thing about it to anyone else. I assure you, it still happens even if your social media sites don’t hear about it.

Happy living.

Poetry, Humanity, Gravel and Gold.

Posted on by sereichert

Listen Kids. We’ve been going hard at it now for the past few months all about writing theory, types of writing, how to write, what to write, and on and on and on and on…

Today is the last Thursday before the election and it has been a crazy past few months. To that end, I would like to offer you a little bit more of the Beautiful portion of The Beautiful Stuff.

There are no exercises to do, no work-in-progress to compare and tweak.

No Bullet Lists

Just a poem or two I wrote while camped out in the Rocky Mountains for a few days, re-evaluating my writing and, in part, my life.

I hope you find repose in the next week or two. I hope you weigh what is good, and just, and right for all of our citizens. I hope you vote with the conscience of someone who cares for their fellow human beings and all of our quality of life. I hope you vote.

When it’s done I hope you can let the last few years of hatred and divisiveness go. Put it down. Reach across the chasm that was created by small-minded men seeking to destroy unity and human decency. Those who grew their power by pitting us against one another.

I hope you can find rest. I hope you can find beauty. I hope you find your voice and you use it to stand up against injustice, stand up for your fellow human beings, and stand together against hatred.

Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

Here it is. Poetry

More Gravel Than Gold

I hope that heaven’s streets,

are more gravel than gold.

That the armaments are granite peaks

and the angels’ song,

quaking aspen.

I hope that heaven’s throng is more full

of friends than the righteous.

That the memories of Grandma’s hands

will be photos regained in focus.

I hope that heaven is made of home

more porch swing and creek than opulent spire.

That they’re waiting to hear my tires in the driveway

and they’ll rush out with soapy hands

warm hugs

and how was the drive?

I hope that heaven’s streets

are more gravel than gold

And we’ll meet there together

on the porch, beside the hush of river,

telling tales of the journey in.

Conscience.

Posted on by sereichert

Listen. I write about writing. But–I’m also a student of the world. A mother. A teacher. A women’s rights activist. A human rights activist. A believer that we all deserve to be safe, loved, respected, and honored.

I’m not going to lie. This recent world has left me so–fucking hollow and angry, and sad, and despondent. We are sick. We are dying. We are killing each other and hating each other, and judging each other. I have kids, for christssake. Beautiful little beings that I brought into this quagmire of hatred and corruption. I kick myself every day for the world we’re giving them.

If you aren’t angry. You should be. If you aren’t melted into a pool of helpless and hopelessness; you should be. Every day I fight to get up and DO something.

Today I did this.

And if you don’t like it, stop following me. If it offends you, go sit down and examine why. Chances are it has to do with your own conscience.

Conscience

Peel back the antiquity

The antebellum haze over your eyes

The veil of American greatness

And look at what we’ve done.

A body lies face down

Slaughtered in her own home

Life cut short,

Weightless in blood loss

And all the things

She will never do.

She will never again

Be.

Someone’s child.

Someone’s baby.

Someone’s daughter,

Someone’s only heart.

Stop looking away…

Stop justifying

The unjustifiable.

Stop making excuses

Pale, white excuses.

Justifying your hatred

Through the fabric of a flag

Or a bible

Or whatever misguided armaments

You deny the worth

Of another human life with.

Stop denying

That the slave owner still owns.

That the shackles still bind

Stop denying

That the rules don’t apply

Stop denying

That the seething pool of hatred

That puts the small brained

And fearful men in power

Isn’t a sickening, disease,

Worsening this land

Butchering its people.

In the middle of the night

In their own homes.

Stop putting power into

Hands that hold no compassion

Stop putting power

into fear-filled hearts

Into anger-filled heads

Stop putting bullets

Into black skin

Peel back the white washed history

Look to the truth

See it.

The sun shining on

The dark, sweat slicked backs

that built this country

The lives that paid its dues,

Built its land

Its commerce

Its industry.

See how we still manage,

To. This. Day.

To put them up on blocks

Bloodied

On streets

Bullet holes in backs

Children watching

Their fathers cut down

Crosses burned and

Bodies dragged

Churches riddled with metal

And hate.

Six gaping holes

In the pajamas of an EMT.

How many more lives would she have saved?

That’s how many murders you deserved to answer for.

Add in the life of her mother.

Her family.

Everyone who loved her.

Because you killed them too.

Not free.

I hope your conscious is never free.

I hope it shackles you.

I hope it whips tight, thick lashes

into your back

And puts you on the blocks

To weigh your worth.

I hope it steals your children

I hope it guns them down in the street

I hope it corners you, every night

I hope it kneels on your throat

I hope you suffocate in your shame.

Shame on you.

Shame on all of us.

The Beautiful Writers Workshop: A Musical Reprieve

Posted on by sereichert

Hello kids. Listen, lately this blog has been heavy handed with the writerly stuff. Let’s face it, a lot is going on in the world and sometimes its nice to focus on something we can control, something we can improve, something we can do.

I began this blog with a rant that just sprung out of the general feeling of hopelessness, anger, frustration and worry. For my family, my community, my country. I began on a three paragraph spewing about inequality and why the government and richest among us love to stoke the fires of divisiveness. I began, this early morning, festering outwardly what I’ve been festering inwardly for the last three an a half years.

Because our country has turned to a festering shit pile that’s hard to ignore. But we all know it. We all see ourselves behaving like hateful, ignorant assholes, but…everyone’s doing it so it makes it ok? See? Witness how easy it is for me to fall back into the loop that keeps me up at night, gives me anxiety, and makes me plan to move off the grid and become a hermit.

But today is about reprieve. A break. A rest.

Something different is called for. And so, to take a side road from writing (while not diving into the sewage that our current state of affairs has become), I want to talk about song lyrics.

Specifically, those lyrics from songs that stick into the sides of our hearts. That spur inspiration in our brains. That connect us as human beings. Surely you’ve got a few rambling around in your neurons. I’m going to give you a few here, and links to the songs.

Your exercise this week is to listen to some of your favorites and something new. Think about the words and how they correspond with your own experiences.

Writing is not as powerful if, at some point, the reader (or listener) doesn’t sit back and say to themselves ‘man, I’ve been there’.

Your job, in essence is to find a way to connect to a complete stranger by letting their words affect you.

Here you go:

I heard this one earlier in the week and it had been years. As I’ve aged, it’s struck different and more meaningful emotions in me.

“Once upon a time there was an ocean
But now it’s a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything’s changed

It’s a dead end job, and you gets tired of sittin’
And it’s like a nicotine habit you’re always thinking about quittin’
I think about quittin’ every day of the week
When I look out my window it’s brown and it’s bleak

Outta here
How am I gonna get outta here?
I’m thinking outta here
When am I gonna get outta here?
And when will I cash in my lottery ticket
And bury my past with my burdens and strife?
I want to shake every limb in the garden of Eden
And make every love the love of my life

I figure that once upon a time I was an ocean
But now I’m a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything’s changed

Found a room in the heart of the city, down by the bridge
Hot plate and TV and beer in the fridge
But I’m easy, I’m open, that’s my gift
I can flow with the traffic, I can drift with the drift
Home again?
Naw, never going home again
Think about home again?
I never think about homeBut then comes a letter from home
The handwriting’s fragile and strange
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything’s changed

The light through the stained glass was cobalt and red
And the frayed cuffs and collars were mended by haloes of golden thread
The choir sang, “Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean”
And all the old hymns and family names came fluttering down as leaves of emotion

As nothing is different, but everything’s changed”

This man is brilliant, in voice and lyric. There’s something dark and gritty in him that brings out the underbelly of love:

“Love ain’t nothing more than black magic
You better want what you wish for
It might happen
I drank your poison
Fell under your spell
Love is hell and nothing more than black magic

Love is like a bag of drugs it blows out both your knees
Innocence gets tangled when you hang it on a string
Both our eyes were foggy glass, too high to ever see
The devil’s sleight of hand, twisting fate with ancient ink”

This song…is on my alarm in the morning…Because what we have is what we are and where we’ve been has gotten us this far.

“Every tree has got a root
And every girl forbidden fruit and got her demons
And the path I chose to go, a different girl so long ago
I had my reasons

And she’s in my head so loud, screaming
“Shouldn’t you be proud of what you came from?
Oh, you’ve been crippled and you’ve walked on
You’ve been shut up and you talked, so let’s talk some more”

Where is the hand for me to reach?
Where is the moral I’ll ever teach myself?
In all the black, in all the grief, I am redeemed

And its ripping at my heart
Because Im dodging all the darts and on a slow train
And then Ill wear it til it tatters
And it shatters on the floor in instant replay

Oh, were all rotten and were pure
And were just looking for the cure that feels like spring snow
And all we have is who we are and where we’ve been got us this far, so let me go”

This woman’s voice and writing is so empowering. I recommend listening to this one while you’re out walking, or running, or moving. It’s a heart-helper.

“The way you smile
When you believe in it, in your future
It’s different, it’s different

Now we moving forward, ever backwards
Never forward, ever backwards, never
And when the going gets rough and life gets tough
Don’t forget to breathe

I love it here
‘Cause I don’t have to explain to them
Why I’m valuable, that I’m magical
And back home they tear
Tear my soul apart
Love my broken heart
I don’t know where to start

The way you smile when you believe in it, in your future
It’s different”

I could go on ALL DAY. But I’ll only give you two more.

This has been a favorite of mine for a long time. It feels like a whole journey through life and the one lesson at the end you wished you’d known sooner. And this video, I believe, was compiled by some amateur videographers. It’s brilliant. It feels like what my soul would do, if it were untethered from fear.

“Hello, my old heart
How have you been?
Are you still there inside my chest?
I’ve been so worried, you’ve been so still
Barely beating at all

Oh, oh, don’t leave me here alone
Don’t tell me that we’ve grown
For having loved a little while
Oh, oh, I don’t wanna be alone
I wanna find a home
And I wanna share it with you

Hello, my old heart
It’s been so long
Since I’ve given you away
And every day, I add another stone
To the walls I built around you
To keep you safe

Oh, oh, don’t leave me here alone
Don’t tell me that we’ve grown
For having loved a little while
Oh, oh, I don’t wanna be alone
I wanna find a home
And I wanna share it with you

Hello, my old heart
How have you been?
How is it being locked away?
Don’t you worry, in there, you’re safe
And it’s true, you’ll never beat
But you’ll never break

Nothing lasts forever
Some things aren’t meant to be
But you’ll never find the answers
Until you set your old heart free
Until you set your old heart free”

If you haven’t been listening to them so far it’s cool. But, PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS ONE. PLEASE WATCH THIS ONE. In today’s hurtful environment, we all need to be reminded that every man is a son to a daughter. Every woman is a daughter to a father. We should always treat each other as if we are gifts, in need of love and understanding. It should be forefront in every heart and mind.

“What I’ve learnt from the ocean
Hard to dance and rejoice in the motion
Let the sun have its moment
The moon will come
What I’ve learnt from a soldier
Every man is a son to a daughter
And we only remember
When we see the blood

Don’t grow up on me
Keep that backstroke in your Afro
Don’t you grow up on me
Slow up homie
Don’t you grow up on me
Keep it OG sipping slowly
Don’t you grow up on me
Slow up homie

Don’t you show off on me
Don’t you grow up on me
Show off on me

What I’ve learnt from a traveler
There’s no road that can lead to nirvana
There’s a world to discover
But home is love

What I’ve learnt from a mirror
Look too hard and you’ll find you a stranger
Love is just a decision
The choice is yours”

All right, writers. The choice is yours, how you do this day. Are you an ocean or a mountain range? All you’ve gone through has led you to where you are today. And while love is like a bag of drugs that blows out both your knees, you’ll never find the answers until you set your old heart free. I hope you move forwards, ever. Backwards, never. And know that love is just a decision; the choice is yours. I hope you choose love.

I hope you choose love.

The Beautiful Writers Workshop #30: The Dirty Thirty

Posted on by sereichert

Okay. That title doesn’t have anything to do with short stories and how we write them (unless you’re on the right route to submit for Letters to Penthouse…does that still exist anymore?)

What do you mean you haven’t seen this movie!?I’m kind of surprised my mom let me watch it. I’m still mildly obsessed with angels…

I just wanted to mark the occasion of your thirtieth lesson in writing. And drum up interest for our last foray into the short story.

First–How did last week go? Were you able to come up with some ideas for future short stories? Did you write any? Did you revisit some of your favorites from the past? No? Come on…I can’t do it all for you!

If you have managed to draft up a couple of ideas and maybe even pursue them, and you’d like to have a second set of eyes, I’d love to take a look. As you may have seen, I updated my submissions guidelines on Tuesday for anyone looking to start building their platform as well as finding a place for their work (without the work of having to start and maintain a blog…gosh, I’m doing EVERY THING for you!)

So, last bit of short story advice is this. Once you have your strong (loved or hated character) and you’ve thrown them into a bus crash on their way up to hike Machu Pichu, what do you do with it?

Well, as in Poetry and Flash Fiction, if you you believe in this work and you want to see if it’s worth the reading for the general public; you submit it for consideration.

After a very thorough round of editing (or six), conformance (sure that’s a word?) to industry standard word counts, and all of your I’s dotted, you embark on the great internet search to find the perfect journals/mags/online forums to submit to. You find out the editor’s name, and use it to craft a beautiful query letter, follow each publication’s guidelines to the letter, and submit your work (while recording who and where and when you sent it to because you’re not a disorganized slob like me). Then you sit back and wait for the magic to happen.

Except you should never just sit back and wait as a writer.

Once that beautiful piece of literature, sure to torture high-school student’s someday with its dissection, is out in the hands of hard-eyed editors, you go back to that booklet of ideas and begin again.

The secret to a good writer, is that they don’t throw all of their hope into one basket and hurl it into the universe. They churn out the baskets, in a timely manner and with enough care that they aren’t just filled with shit. And they keep plugging away at it. And the first stories might actually be baskets of shit. But it gets better, they get better, you get better, until soon, you know what works and what doesn’t by the frequency of rejection notices.

I think I just summed up my writing existence in one paragraph. You’re welcome.

Normally, I would leave you with a list of publications that are accepting short stories. But…I think it might be time for me to kick you out of the proverbial nest on this one.

Go online–resist the urge to search cute kitten videos or Henry Cavill shirtless…holding kittens–and search for places now accepting submissions for short stories. If you can be specific in your search to the content of your story. Narrowing your search engine will save you time and weed out the journals that aren’t interesting in what you’ve written.

My general rule of thumb is collecting a list of 15 to 20 potential publications (yes, there are that many) and submitting my story(s) to 3 or 4 of them a week.

*Disclaimer–some publications will NOT ACCEPT simultaneous submissions so either submit different pieces or wait to submit until your current work is rejected (I’m not saying it will be…I’m just–*sigh*–saying that the odds are such).

Boom.

Mic Drop

That’s it. Go write something. Go submit something. Go watch “Barbarella” then write something. Come see me next week and yell at me for breaking your brain with Jane Fonda breaking ‘The Machine’. Next week’s topic is a surprise. (I say that because I don’t even know what I’m writing about next week)

Happy Writing!

The Beautiful Writers Workshop #28:

Posted on by sereichert

Happy Tuesday Beautiful Writers. I hope that your weekend was productive or relaxing (depending on what you needed most). It’s been a surreal existence as the mountains west are experiencing a massive wildfire. Kids and dogs and parents all stuck inside while a throat-burning haze has settled over the neighborhoods and streets. Makes for a feeling of being pressed down even further into the desperation of our times.

I hope, where ever you are reading this from, that you are safe and healthy, and that you are taking the precautions you need to in order to stay well.

I feel like there are some soap boxes I want to stand on right now…I’ve already deleted a few paragraphs on matters related to the continued destruction of our world, to the importance of the people we put in charge of our governments when it comes to the health of the environment, to the responsibility we hold over the continuation of all life on earth. But I’m going to take a deep breath, back away from that for now, and offer you up what I promised. Flash Fiction examples and where to send your work.

The first comes from Bill Wickstrom (a helluva fine man, expert bicycle mechanic, fisherman, and 4-H Shooting Sports Instructor, from the beautiful wilds of Wyoming) Enjoy!

Untitled

The cat curled up in the sun, his stomach full and warm. I told him I would, he thought.

Next Ms Janis Perez from New Mexico (a nearly-retired fifth-grade teacher *standing ovation* who’s getting a jump start on her ‘new’ career as a writer *standing ovation #2 because teachers deserve EVERY ounce of support we can give them) we have:

Three Tires

            Lisa sat in passenger’s seat and wondered; what happened to the car who’s tire exploded with such force that all remained were the shreds of it being bandied about by the never-ending flow of traffic on I-25?

At some point, in some person’s day, their car’s stability broke away and they were faced with the instantaneous situation of being hobbled at breakneck speeds. Would the lights come? Would the sirens bawl and angry drivers crane their necks to see what had thrown off their commute?

What happened to the person in the three-legged car? Did they crash? Did they lose their jobs for being late? Did they die?

What did it sound like when your cushion of safety suddenly turned to the sound of aching metal on asphalt?

            What did it feel like to know were going to die? Even for a split second?

            “Nearly there! Boy this traffic!” Her father startled her. “Are you excited?”

            Lisa mumbled, “Sure.”

            “Come on, L Bean! This is the first week of college! Out on your own!”

He was painting on the false sense of excitement thick. She didn’t understand why he felt the need to pretend; why he was lying that he was excited she was moving out. Not when it had just been them for so long.

            Ever since the tire had blown out on their life. Ever since mom left shards of herself along the bathroom wall and tub. Pieces of her safety cushion spattered across the sink. Lucky number 13-birthday present. The quiet instability of a tire that couldn’t survive the pressure of lane-shifting at breakneck speeds.

            She wondered what would become of her father when they she was gone. When the emptiness of the house would be complete. How sturdy were his tires? Would he end up a scatter of broken pieces in the HOV lane?

What would happen to her?

Lisa looked out the window at the Albuquerque skyline, cluttered with the fog of traffic. The particulate matter of a city so congested that the wind couldn’t keep up with its exhaling. A large Lexus swerved in front of them and her dad hit the brakes reactively.

            Her heart stopped, the burn of rubber squealing beneath her, the painful nerve sense that flooded her body with adrenaline.

            “I wanna go home!” she shrieked.

            “What?” Her dad’s breath caught and he slowed down, avoiding the collision.

            “I want to go home. I don’t want to change lanes. I don’t want to go. I’ve only got three tires.”

            “What?” Her father swung his head to look at her between checking his mirrors. “Honey—“

            “I don’t want to be a tire in the road.”

            “Lisa, what are you talking about?”

            “Take me home,” she said.

            “You have to go.” The first honest words in months. “You can’t get to anywhere good, if you don’t take the road. You have to start making your won.”

            “Dad.”

            “I’ll get you there, safe and sound.” He promised.

And here are a couple of my own:

Hoarder

Grandma’s ghost hid the silver, again.

We-evil

            The desolation was complete. Nothing stood in the field but lone stalks of brown, looking like they’d once been corn, leaning at odd angles from random pockets where the potential of seeds once bedded. Dried holes in the ground. Dried memories of a life, no longer sustainable.

            Chance Patterson tipped his cap up against the sun and squinted, crows-feet to the sky.

            He couldn’t remember when he’d last seen the color green.

            He couldn’t remember when he’d last seen another person driving down the dirt road, or the farther off highway. The distant train tracks, long since abandoned. Not one soul.

Not since the cloud swept through. Not since the sky turned that awful shade of black and turned out the sun. Not since the sickness hit his herd and the cloud silenced his corn before fruit could bear. He sighed to the rays of a sun much hotter than all his memories of summer combined.

A smarter man might have moved on. Stocked up on gas, food, supplies, and what clean water he could find and left the land. Looked for what remained. Looked for someone else who’d survived. Chance tucked his cap back down at the sight of distant crosses on the hill.

Momma and Dad buried in the hard-parched earth. Sister Rose and his favorite dog Beau.

Who knew what kinds were left? The helpless kind? Or the killing kind. The hungry and wild kind, like the sickness that had took his brother’s brain and left bullet holes in the lot of them while Chance had been out walking the lines, looking for hope.

Coming home to the hopeless.

Why didn’t he just leave?

Call it the comfort of familiarity; call it the only place he’d ever known, his whole world the sixty acres of useless burnt ground, littered with the corpses of his family and the death of three generations of dreams. Chance kicked the dust, stirring the debris of corn and wheat up into the air and he recalled a song that one fella used to sing. Kind of the hippie type; kind of a rocker.

Time to move on, he’d said. Time to get going.

“What lies ahead,” Chance said and stared at the road, empty and sullen. Not even the casual silhouette of a raven on a fence post or finch on a wire. Was it worth the trip out? What if there was a woman out there? A woman, like him, just trying to survive. Nothing left to her name but the shitty straw of having survived.

What if…his eyes fell to the barren fields. The sun hit something, flashing a star into his eyes. He wandered over, bent down, and picked up the broken mirror of his old Tonka truck.  A boy playing in the dirt. Whole future ahead of him.

Maybe tomorrow he’d chance it.

Thank you to everyone who sent me something for consideration as well as to those who shared them without wanting to share it with the world. I’m honored you chose to share it with me. All stunning stuff, so thanks again!

Now, here’s your promised list. All of these journals and mags are phenomenal but I URGE you to READ THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES before submitting. Some of them are very niche. Some of them have strict word count guidelines. Some are darker, some are lighter. Some require you to study a picture and write 100 words on what could be happening. All good things. Good luck and let me know if you get any response back from your submissions!

3 AM Magazine

Flash Fiction Online 

Word Riot 

Everyday Fiction 

Brevity 

Pank 

100 Word Story 

Smokelong Quarterly 

Hobart 

Drunken Boat 

Flash Fiction Magazine 

The Collagist 

Lunch Ticket 

NANO Fiction 

Fiction Southeast 

Southeast Review

Ernest Hemingway Flash Fiction Prize.

Literary Orphans –

The Rookery

Monkeybicycle 

Wigleaf –

Vestal Review –

 DecomP 

 Juked 

 Cheap Pop 

 Nanoism 

 New Flash Fiction Review 

 Lamplight,

FRiGG Magazine,

Superstition Review 

 Hoot

Willow Springs 

The Beautiful Writers Workshop #20: Finding Romance in a Time of Disconnect

Posted on by sereichert

The world is a tense place right now and I know I’m not the only one who’s been suffering with a busy and worried mind. These days, these times, these overcrowded houses, and insecurities about the future don’t make for good bedfellows and it’s not just artists who are suffering.

A recent study revealed that fewer people are having sex. Especially in the younger age groups. A combination of the world’s current crises, economic disparity, job loss, women’s fears of sexual violence, and a general unease about the current “hook up” culture have left a great many of us feeling as though sex just isn’t worth all the hullabaloo. (Clear sign that people aren’t getting enough play time between the sheets is the uptake in old-timey language like “hullabaloo”, “horse feathers”, “fiddle faddle”, wisenheimer”, “canoodling” and “shenanigans”)

So, what better time for yours truly to have signed up for an online Romance Writers Conference this weekend, brought to us by the lovely folks at The Wordsmith Institute. Despite feeling a little ‘meh’ about love in general, my hope is that it will ignite some latent ideas that will help me finish the two or three novels that have just been sitting like cold leftovers in my fridge.

 (I should eat that before it goes bad, but I’m just not feeling like all that fiddle-faddle. I’ll make a quesadilla.)

I’m not sure how many of my writing clan out there dabbles in romance or what your current feelings are on the matter, but I think that when we are faced with a world in such serious and important chaos, the idea of a little escapism should not be dismissed too lightly. Passion comes in many forms, and when we stoke the fires of one form, we help to ignite the others. A passionate life is not just in the pursuit of justice, it is in the pursuit of love and happiness as well. And a good romance novel will follow this pursuit.

So, for today’s exercise, whether or not you write romance, I would like you to try your hand at a touch of eroticism (there’s a double meaning in there). I’m not suggesting you sit down and write your tawdriest letter to Penthouse. I don’t want to know about girth or the overused metaphors of trembling phalluses or ‘moist’ orifices. (Yuck, I think I just grossed myself out).

I want you to find the eroticism in the small details, objects, places, memories. Eroticism is more than just what you think of when you see an eggplant emoji.

Awe, they’re canoodling! (Photo by Dainis Graveris on Pexels.com)

Take your time, focus on the minute details of moments. The way a finger plucks a grape from the vine, or how a callus feels against the small of your back. Focus on the path of a rain droplet down a leaf, the low blood-warming rumble of thunder, the smell of skin warmed by sunshine. The juice of a mango running down your wrist.

Write about those moments and observations, as if it were the world teasing you.

What makes them sensual? What makes your breath quicken?

If you need more direct inspiration, here are some great suggestions from Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones”:

  1. What makes you hot?
  2. Name all the sexual fruits you know? What makes them so?
  3. What do you crave when you are in love?
  4. What is the most erotic part of your body? (and please, be creative, we all know the obvious ones—reach for something more interesting—well, not literally…or yes literally–what do I care what you do in the privacy of your own home? I support however you process).
  5. Write the body as a landscape.
  6. What do you connect with? (physicality, music, touch, words: think of this similarly as how you learn. Visually, orally, auditory, by doing, by reading?)
  7. Do you remember the very first time you felt desire? When was the first time you felt erotic?

Okay! There you go, something fun to get out of the world for a minute. I hope it helps to boost your writing if not your mood. Maybe your cohabiter will even benefit from these shenanigans. As Monty Python so eloquently said: “wink, wink, nudge, nudge”.

Life Without FaceBook

Posted on by sereichert

Let’s admit it, the last fifteen years have been a time of experimental growth for humans and their technology. Zuckerberg and his pals in Social Media Land rolled a tiny pair of dice and took the house. It is in everything we do. Its how we communicate, how we share, how we learn about each other (or at least what we choose to tell people in our half-truth screen life). It’s also how advertisers find us, how personal information is given out to people we never intended it for, and how the dangerous Echo Chamber was born.

I decided, last week, to step off of that particular merry-go-round. Yes, it hurts my online presence as a writer. But let’s be honest, not many people read my work anyway, so its not like I’m at a huge loss there. Yes, I miss seeing pictures of my friends and their funny posts, or catching up with my mom via Messenger. I miss seeing my nephew grow like a weed, and laugh at the geeky memes from my writer and nerd friends.

But one of the biggest reasons I left was that I realized how much I would miss the immediate gratification of a thumbs up sign to the comments, or pictures, or jokes that I used to post.

You see, FaceBook didn’t just sell us “connectivity” with our friends, family, and community. It sells us self-esteem, self-empowerment, even self-justification. And it reinforces those things by allowing us to filter out the people and sites we don’t agree with, and keep us comfortably surrounded by our already accepted beliefs.

Fifty likes on a post made me feel like I was some sort of rock start writer, or that I was cared about after a rough day.

Three made me feel like no one was listening and I didn’t matter.

None at all, I admit, somedays made me wonder if I existed at all…

I became a person who measured her self-worth by how many people were paying attention to me.

I became a person who was in need of the treat, like a dog who’s been clicker trained. Combine that with the perfectly filtered photos of friends, their lofty career accomplishments, their ‘humble’ retelling of good deeds done and I often felt self-stigma as to why I was not doing, being, having more. I teetered on the edge of what was real. I dove directly into self-loathing on more than one occasion.

Then, life threw in a few major world-events, the dividing lines between friends and family started cutting deeper and deeper and every post became something that set you apart from or joined you to one side or the other. Just like the Kardashians, FaceBook thrives the most when it’s got a healthy plate of drama in front of it.

We are a nation and world in the midst of a health crisis as well as sitting on the precipice of FINALLY understanding what America has been doing wrong since the creation of our country. I began to realize that no matter how loud I shouted on-line that racism was real, that being white and poor is not the same as being black and poor, that white children will never know the fear and limits that have been placed on black children, I would never change the minds of people who were not ready to accept it.

And watching that disheartening ignorance was just as bad as seeing well-MEANING friends post the trendiest slogan and know that that was the extent of their epiphany on the matter.

So I left. Not because I don’t love pictures of toe-headed babies and Star Wars Memes. I didn’t leave because I don’t like reading well-thought out and civil discussions on hard topics (a few of those do exist). I didn’t leave because I didn’t want to connect with all kinds of people from all spectrums of the scale.

I left because it’s not real. There’s always an angle, even from the most well-intentioned person.

I left because I don’t trust Zuckerberg to fact-check if it doesn’t suit his bottom line.

I left because most of the conversations I read or engaged in, have devolved into ugly name calling and personal attacks that have nothing to do with compassionate communication or the intention of trying to understand.

I left because in the last week I’ve actually connected on a personal level with friends I hadn’t talked to in years.

I left because I want to be more real and not just someone hiding myself  behind a glossy filter of anonymity.

I left because I know that all those perfect people out there aren’t so perfect.

I left because I am enough and I don’t need someone else’s approval to justify my worth.

I left because FaceBook is fucking addictive and I don’t need another addiction in my life.

I left because I can’t change the hatred driven opinions of anyone, and I’m done trying to at the expense of my mental health.

I left because my time is better spent working towards a new, hopefully better, future for every human in this country.

I left because I want to make a difference, not just crow about it for the ‘likes’.

I don’t have a writing exercise for you, but I would encourage you to give up FaceBook for one week. (They even have a ‘take a break’ option if you’re not ready to throw in the towel completely like me).

See how much time it frees up. See how much mental space it frees up. Enjoy a meal without having to share a picture. Enjoy a song and call the person who it reminds you of, instead of posting it. Try being a real person for a bit, and see how your mental health improves. Remember, we actually all got along pretty well before it came around, you won’t die without it.