I’m like a bad gender cliché; I don’t look at the map and I don’t read instructions. Giving me a bit of credit I do have a good sense of direction and can figure most things out with a manual; my new kindle HD for instance. I didn’t consider the result when I started making prosebox books for each flash fiction. I have a book called flash fiction, that’s where I’ll put stuff. Eventually I guess I’ll delete or archive the individual books marked with any given Friday.
The only problem I have with that is that like any other online journal I have it’s the notes I like best, it’s the notes I go back to read, it’s the piece of the entries from the public I want the public to see. About once a year I like making an entry of notes, objectively funny or profound but made even more so by being out of context (e.g. An entry about the nutrias that lived outside this seafood restaurant in Milwaukie --- no, that’s not spelled wrong, that’s how Milwaukie Oregon is spelled. Why? I don’t know, Milwaukee Wisconsin, I believe, was named after a chief of a local tribe --- oh and they’ll be a note like “Perhaps a Dingo ate your Beaver” {{ a nutria looks like a beaver with a rat tail}} Out of context Ate Your Beaver is rude and hysterical).
I know, it’s a big to do on Simple Minds Diary, which, I hope, doesn’t become a Ministry Of Journaling 1984 style the way the poor DiaryMasters page became. It really is cruel to play with the ball the one kid brought and not let him enjoy the game; it’s like he brought the ball but his position is referee. To extend that metaphor we aren’t even playing football, we’re playing Smear the Queer (No, not gay bashing. I don’t know another name for that game. The ball goes in the air and everybody tries to tackle the poor sumbitch and/or daughterumbitch what has the ball).
Oh. As long as I’m making kid game analogies, there are two classic 13-15 y/o boy games for noobies; the snipe hunt and the circle jerk. In the one the poor noobie is hiding in the bushes waiting to shoot a creature that does not exist (I think, perhaps, playing that game in, say, Vatican City, has a layer of irony to it) and the circle jerk, ideally, when the light comes on the noobie is yanking his freshly come to life external genitalia while the others point and laugh. Writing entries about the mechanics of a writing site makes me feel a bit like I’m being caught in the light with my joystick in my paw.
It’s come to my attention that a game much like flash Friday has cropped up. Do I know a delicate way of just asking the participants if they’d like to join a game in progress, one that has spanned almost four years? Surely I must. I’m a little ham fisted to tap into delicacy today. Both online and in real life (irl if you will, it doesn’t really save much time on a full keyboard) my attempts at delicacy, of late, have either been cryptic or create some blunt force trauma. Years ago I came to travel briefly with this guy on Visa, taking a hiatus from some Fancy German Prep School. He claimed to be the black market liaison for the school. He talked tough, I let him. We were somewhere, let’s say a truck stop, and I called the waitress ma’am. He went into a five minute lesson about how manners show weakness; they were tantamount to Baaaing in the killing chute (why sheep and not cows is beyond me, I’m thinking he didn’t get out of berlin much. I’m guessing livestock were only metaphors to him.). His real point was that if you come across rude and tough no one will fuck with you. He thought that was how he’d appear American to Americans.
I think we’re all more interesting without artifice. Built into the flash format is a no artifice boundary, not a rule, but a boundary; there isn’t enough time to put Greek columns on your trailer. Roman either, or, for that matter, aluminum siding. If you’re quick you can get a few load bearing beams and doorways in. I’m not really suggesting the other game has too much artifice, the honest and almost delicate thing is Flash Friday has more people that’d have to shift. It has these gems made by people who otherwise would not write fiction and really wouldn’t write fiction to raw for a second draft. It’s a delicate balance but one that has, to date, worked.
Um, also I don’t give a shit. I mean I don’t give a shit if five hundred flash Friday like games crop up. There is no trademark on the idea. I can’t imagine something like that being competitive either, though, I suppose if it were there would be arguments about cheating “You so took longer than 45 minutes!” “Did not!” “Did So!” I guess I can be delicate when I’m done being dumbfounded. It’d actually tickle me to no end if one day a week everybody wrote flash fiction. Why? I don’t know, I guess I’m ticklish. I just don’t know why there needs to be two or more. The difference between the “game” and just writing fiction is in the prompts. The “game” in progress has more participants and so there are more prompts, the more prompts the more likely one is to find a set that appeals. Just saying.
My assumption is they didn’t know there was one in progress. If they did I’d find it impossible to be delicate. The phrase “Are you too good for us?” would be singing in my ear every time I tried to write a note of invitation. I’m awfully damn proud of the flashes y’all do and whereas I’d never defend my own stuff (mostly because I already know what is good and what sucks in my own stuff, I don’t have a chip on my shoulder) but I will bite and scratch to defend yours (I mean if I’m beaten to the point of only having one fingernail left and one tooth, otherwise I’ll punch and kick and rail against the firmament).
I’m going with they didn’t know. I never call a prick a prick until it’s turgid. Yikes! That was supposed to be a pun. Although the idea of competitive fiction is objectively pretty damn funny, I mean competitive fiction with no greater “prize” than bragging rights, I don’t want the people trying this for the first time to feel intimidated. Without fresh blood it’s all inbreeding, the few left standing will get hip dysplasia or hemophilia. That and the new blood flashes warm the cockles of the place my heart would be if I had one. Ok, I have one; it’s in a safety deposit box in the Cayman Islands, and insurance policy for when Interpol knocks down my door. Anyone know a nice country with no extradition?
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