Lashes
By Mary McCallum
The art of mascara isn't hard to master. It just needs a firmness of touch, and a wiggle before the brush leaves the lashes. I've applied it on the run: on the toilet, eating breakfast, driving to work - one hand on the steering wheel, one on the mascara wand, both eyes on the road. I swear, I'd only look in the rear vision mirror once or twice.
That last time was different. Something scratching - a dislodged lash? The mascara clogged on the brush. I remember tipping the mirror and looking deep into the weeping white of my eye. The flash of yellow out of nowhere. Tiny candy-pink tights cartwheeling. One shoe. On the bonnet, the daisy from the little yellow hat.
That's all I see now, and I refuse to frame it. I can't. No more black plasticky lash-paint for me. Lashes, only lashes.
___________________________________________
Lashes is one of the two short-short stories I entered in the brand-new section of the BNZ Literary Awards which you enter via Facebook. These stories are so short you could read them on an cell phone. It was fun writing them - more like writing a poem than a story.
Anyway, the winner has been announced and it isn't me, it's the very deserving James Francis with 'Whoo eh'! with Will Harvie and Grant Aldridge, Highly Commended. Go here and scroll down.... Graham Beattie was the judge and there were hundreds of entries apparently. Anyway, that leaves me free to post my story here. I entered it under my Gran's maiden name: Elsie French (a pseudonym was required.).
Showing posts with label BNZ Literary Awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BNZ Literary Awards. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
150-word stories
I am really enjoying the challenge of writing 150-word short stories for the BNZ Literary Awards (once called the Katherine Mansfield Awards) this year. The 150-word category - called 'flash fiction' in the States - is a new one, and a groovy concept. For a start, you enter the story on Facebook, and there's a groovy little inspiration tool with random phrases (or there was, can't find it now...), an 'inspiration gallery', examples of other short short stories, and an unfolding 'twitter tale' to get the juices going. This category also has a groovy judge in Graham Beattie.
It's certainly caught my imagination. I've written two so far and found the exercise not unlike doing a sudoku puzzle or cryptic crossword - it challenges and sharpens the mind, and is surprisingly satisfying. Maybe it's just me and my easy distractibility - but one short story idea I've had for awhile, that I haven't managed to get down on paper, has now found a home, and others are lining up ... However, the first 150-word story I wrote last week began from an overheard phrase and an associated idea, and then just unfolded on the page much like a poem (with hours of editing afterwards.)
In fact my novelist friend Thom Conroy says, the 150-word story is a category for a poet (at least one who also likes dabbling in fiction.) It certainly has to have a narrative - albeit concentrated down to the nth degree - but at the same time, as with poetry, economy of language is the key. Each word has to pull its weight and most are freighted with meaning. At the same time, the story needs to have 'space' in it to make it feel like a story not a poem. I guess I mean the reader doesn't need to feel the weight in each word - an unfolding narrative feel is the key.
It's like a tale told over a beer, a joke. It also reminds me of some of the excellent prose poems floating around at the moment. Poet Airini Beautrais is particularly good at them.
Flash fiction has interested me for awhile - in this busy era overloaded with apps, I think it may well find its niche. Why not give it a go? And if economy is not your thing, there are always the other awards to enter... Go here.
It's certainly caught my imagination. I've written two so far and found the exercise not unlike doing a sudoku puzzle or cryptic crossword - it challenges and sharpens the mind, and is surprisingly satisfying. Maybe it's just me and my easy distractibility - but one short story idea I've had for awhile, that I haven't managed to get down on paper, has now found a home, and others are lining up ... However, the first 150-word story I wrote last week began from an overheard phrase and an associated idea, and then just unfolded on the page much like a poem (with hours of editing afterwards.)
In fact my novelist friend Thom Conroy says, the 150-word story is a category for a poet (at least one who also likes dabbling in fiction.) It certainly has to have a narrative - albeit concentrated down to the nth degree - but at the same time, as with poetry, economy of language is the key. Each word has to pull its weight and most are freighted with meaning. At the same time, the story needs to have 'space' in it to make it feel like a story not a poem. I guess I mean the reader doesn't need to feel the weight in each word - an unfolding narrative feel is the key.
It's like a tale told over a beer, a joke. It also reminds me of some of the excellent prose poems floating around at the moment. Poet Airini Beautrais is particularly good at them.
Flash fiction has interested me for awhile - in this busy era overloaded with apps, I think it may well find its niche. Why not give it a go? And if economy is not your thing, there are always the other awards to enter... Go here.
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