Flash fiction: Heels and Souls

December 16, 2015December 16, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 60 Comments

kitchen-window

In the early morning I discover a well-worn path leading away from the house. It takes me towards the woods, across the parkland. Wider than a deer-track, it’s a route made by and for humans; the earth rubbed smooth by heels and souls. The path passes into a stand of yew, beech and oak, but five hundred yards on, it stops; an abrupt dead-end of ferns and bramble. I can’t see why, since the path is so worn. Where did those who travelled it go? I turn to walk back; before I reach the edge of the wood I am running.

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This is a 100-word flash fiction story written for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, who has also provided this week’s photo. Click here to read other people’s, or here to write your own story.

Flash fiction: E45 to J17

November 18, 2015November 20, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 78 Comments

ce-grate

Richie yawned. Pounding head, furry tongue, woolly brain; he’d rather be sleeping. He drove the sweeper out of the depot. He didn’t like today’s route – too many parked cars, but he could do it with his eyes closed, almost.

Fragments of the previous night came back: the club, the dancing…that girl. That girl! He’d been sure she was up for it. He’d spent a fortune on drinks, then when they were on the street she’d changed her mind. Silly cow.

At E48 the machine swept up an object and stopped. Richie sighed and climbed out. Odd, he thought. Right by last night’s club.

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This is a 100-word story for the Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click here to read some more inspired by the picture (this week provided by Ceayr) or here to join in and write your own.

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This week I’m a NaNoWrimo Coach, and taking over the organisation’s Twitter account. So if you’re writing 50,000 words in November, search for #NaNoCoach on Twitter, and come and ask me a question.

Flash Fiction: Wired

November 5, 2015November 8, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 50 Comments

Peter pushes the spade into the clay and is booted backwards, his insides buzzing and his hair raised. He finds a frayed cable in the soil and tugs, touching only the plastic coating. It lifts out like a pulled thread, peeling off across an overgrown flowerbed towards the house.

He follows it, or rather lets it lead: up against the portico, tucked into the grouting. He looks up, squints. The wire reaches the second floor and disappears into a corner of a window frame; his bedroom.

Inside, he finds the wire under the window seat. A tiny camera attached to the end.

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This is a 100-word story for the Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click here to read some more inspired by the picture (this week provided by Connie Gayer) or here to join in and write your own.

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Yesterday the Goodreads book awards were launched, and it would be great if you’d vote for my book, Our Endless Numbered Days. You need to log into, or join Goodreads, and then scroll down the page to get to the ‘Write-in Vote’ box and type in Our Endless Numbered Days and click vote. And you can then do the same for the fiction category (on the left) if you’re so inclined. If you get through all that – thank you!

Flash fiction: One or Two Words

October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 98 Comments

Yesterday I only said two words: ‘Oneway,’ and ‘thankyou’. Or maybe ‘Oneway’ is two words, so it could be I said three; never was no good at grammar.

This morning on the bus, all the double seats already had people in them, and every one of them people stared out the window as I squeezed past, so as not to catch my eye. I chose an older lady, reminded me of Ma; kind looking. She weren’t though. Huffed and twitched when my leg touched hers, accidental like. Those seats never are big enough.

Only one word today: ‘Sorry.’

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Congratulations to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for her three year anniversary in leading all us writers around the world in the Friday Fictioneers writing challenge. (Write a 100 word story inspired by a weekly photo, this week supplied by Ron Pruitt.) Click here to join in or here to read others.

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For anyone who’s written a first draft of a novel you might be interested in my blog post about how to revise it – written in conjunction with another writing group I’m in – The Prime Writers.

Flash fiction: The Calliope Man

October 8, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 55 Comments

My sister cried the day they dismantled the fair. She was in love with the calliope man who was a rough type with thick lips and a face that had seen better times. She stood by the instrument while it played, holding out the man’s trilby and dancing, showing her ankles.

He promised to take her with him, but in the morning, the man and his hat were gone. For fifteen years the fair has come to town and my sister still waits to hear those breathy whistles. She’s fifty now, too old they say, for the calliope man, or anyone else.

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This is a 100-word story for the Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click here to read some more inspired by the picture (this week provided by Ted Strutz) or here to join in and write your own.

I only recently learned what a calliope was, and it’s such a lovely sounding that I wanted to use it in a story. Here’s an example of one.

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I’m really excited to let you know that my second book, Swimming Lessons, has just been acquired by Fig Tree (an imprint of Penguin). Click here to find out more.

Flash fiction: Pozwól mi pomóc

September 23, 2015September 23, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 68 Comments

Marek holds a map. He can’t read the street names, nor the English instructions on the cans of spray-paint the supervisor gave him. The man was impatient, talked too close and too loudly for Marek to follow.

On a bridge he sprays a white circle around a crater in the pavement. When he stands up a figure is climbing over the railing in the dark.

‘Nie,’ Marek calls, runs. ‘Proszę.’

The person, a woman, turns, looks at him.

‘What?’ she says.

‘Wróć.’ He holds out a hand. ‘Pozwól mi pomóc.’

‘Posvolly… what?’ she says again.

Hesitantly, Marek says, ‘I help.’

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This is a 100-word story for the Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click here to read some more inspired by the picture (this week provided by The Reclining Gentleman) or here to join in and write your own.

I don’t speak Polish – so if any fluent speakers read this and want to let me know if I’ve made any mistakes, I’d love to hear from you, and of course, all other non-Polish speaking readers.

If you’re so inclined it would be lovely if you would vote for my novel, Our Endless Numbered Days in the Edinburgh First novel award, and you’ll have a chance of winning a copy of all 56 novels nominated. (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)

Flash fiction: Chalk Mountain

September 2, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 80 Comments

Can’t remember when I last saw her. Three months ago? Four? You know what it’s like in these old apartment buildings, you give a nod to a neighbour by the mailboxes, but tenants come and go all the time. Mrs Whitelaw, that was it. No, I never did learn her first name. I heard though that they had to break the door down. And d’you know what they discovered? Chalk. The whole apartment was full of those little lumps you can pick up from the park flowerbeds. Mountains of chalk in every room.

Mrs Whitelaw? No, she was never found.

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This is a 100-word story for the Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click here to read some more inspired by the picture (also this week provided by Rochelle) or here to join in and write your own.

Flash fiction: Sleeping

August 26, 2015August 26, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 80 Comments

She lies on the sofa dreaming of librarians and love, naked Swimming Lessons and Ottolenghi. Envelopes fall through the letterbox and the telephone rings, the dinner needs cooking and the cat is hungry, still she sleeps on. Behind her closed lids a garden grows beside the sea.

‘What did you do with your life?’ A higher-being asks, turning the wheels and handles of its population-sized filing cabinet. The machine clunks and sticks on F.

‘I was working on my novel,’ she says.

‘Pah!’ Higher-being replies. ‘You were sleeping.’

She wakes, sits up and begins to write.

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This week Rochelle Wisoff-Fields and our Friday Fictioneers host has selected one of my pictures for people to write to. And for those who don’t know, the picture is of the stacks in the university library where my husband works. The stacks is a system in the basement for storing books and documents. Click here to join in or here to read other people’s stories. My story this week is true.

Flash fiction: Adoption

August 13, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 42 Comments

After she handed Pavi over, Elsa found a job as a butterfly recorder on the South Downs. She camped amongst the bell heather and rose early in the morning to tramp a ten mile stretch of heathland. She counted pearl-bordered fritillaries, white admirals and skippers. But it was the rare silver-studded blue that Elsa worried for the most. When the caterpillars hatched, a species of ant carried them into the nest and fed them until the butterfly emerged.

She wondered about her own child, being fed, housed and cared for by another mother, and whether she would ever fly back home.

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This is a Friday Fictioneers story. 100 (or so) writers writing 100-words (or so) inspired by the picture above (supplied this week by Madison Woods.) Join in or read some more stories.

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As well as being inspired by the picture above, this story was also inspired by the re-introduction of the silver-studded blue butterfly on the South Downs (a 1,600km2 national park stretching from Winchester to Eastborne in the south of England). More about the butterfly here.

Flash fiction: Sleepwalker

August 6, 2015August 6, 2015 / Claire Fuller / 45 Comments

On the first morning, Helen woke shivering on the bathroom mat. She was naked, her knees tucked into her chest. On the second she still had her pyjamas on, but this time she was squashed in a corner of the hall. And on the third she woke under the magnolia, a petal cupping her cheek. Her feet were muddy and when she returned to the house the front door was open. In the afternoon she drove into town and bought a video camera to catch herself sleepwalking . The next day when she played it back she saw no one. Her bed was empty.

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This is a Friday Fictioneers story. 100 (or so) writers writing 100-words (or so) inspired by the picture above (supplied this week by Madison Woods.) Join in or read some more stories.

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Vote for Our Endless Numbered Days in the Edinburgh First Book Prize, and you could win a copy of all 56 books.