…I have a new story, "The Pride" up at 52/250 A Year of Flash. It's also here under "Words In Print." I love 52/250. The idea is you write a story a week, but the piece can be no longer than 250 words. Not one syllable more. Participating in this has really reminded me that when writing, and especially when writing short fiction, every word has to sing, have purpose, and be crucial. Telling an evocative, resonating tale in two-hundred fifty words is very difficult. Try it.

…My daughter and I saw "127 Hours" with James Franco. It was a very well done film by Danny Boyle, who also did "Slumdog Millionaire," (one of my faves) "Millions," (a great little movie) "Sunshine" (a nifty sci-fi story) and "28 Days" (a zombie film I've not seen.) Franco deserves an Oscar nomination. It's amazing how tense this movie is, and stays throughout, given it's basically shot inside a crevice between two rocks. Go see it!

…I'm reading "Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction." I got it a while ago when I first started sending work out but never got around to reading it. Mostly, it's inspirational to me. Here are some great bits that I enjoyed, and you might, too:

…"Every writer has a number of unwritten novels in the form of flash fictions.
--The novel can win by points, the short story has to win by KO.
--Flash fiction can only be resolved by sudden revelation, as wonder. Flash fiction is a fictional truth--an epiphany.
-- We consume time at such velocity that we are probably 20 years ahead of ourselves. Fiction is a time seed, it repudiates the waste of language in a dedundant future.
Flash fiction wanders, I realize now, between waking up and waking down. The fictional, sudden vision occurs when your own soul finally teaches you and brings a fistful of words." -- Julio Ortega

…"Don't wait to be ready. Start before you know what you're saying. Hell, start right now.
No, now.
Now.
Put some stuff in the first sentence and carve in a working verb that is slightly out of place and ask it to do something it hasn't done before or been paid to do. It shouldn't exactly fit. By the time you finish, it will fit perfectly, own the place, be the boss…
…Don't us dirty words, such as they are, hoping to jump-start the engine with explosives. It doesn't work. Boom goes the dirty word and then what. Smoke? Not even. Use cozy words that we haven't seen around for a while, some old word with dandruff on its shoulders and ink stain on its shirt pocket." -- Ron Carlson