Friday Flash

I was too busy to participate in Siobhan Muir's #ThursThreads contest yesterday, but I still have a couple from previous weeks to share.

I have a feeling my tendency to go het contemporary in both this and the one that came after (that I'll post next week) is indicative of my desire for something different. I've been doing primarily m/m for a while now. I'm ready to mix it up again.

*_*_*

“He’s cute.”

“He’s a player.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Really? I can give you the names of six different women he’s dated from this building alone.”

From across the narrow table, I stared at Jenny. I loved her to pieces, but ever since she and her husband went into marital counseling, she’d been a real thorn in my dating side.

“I can give you the names of seven guys from this building I’ve dated,” I countered. “Does that make me a player?”

As her eyes softened, she patted my hand like she was my Nana’s nosy neighbor and not my best friend. “You’re just lonely. I know that.”

“Maybe he’s lonely, too.”

Jenny snorted. “Dating that many women? Not likely.”

Silently, I counted to ten. Our lunch hour wasn’t the time for a lecture on Jen’s willful blindness to the double standard she imposed on a total stranger. “I’ll take the chance.”

Before I could stand, she grabbed my wrist. “Remember Neil? He was the same way and broke your heart. Just do me a favor and say to yourself, ‘This is a place I don’t want to go back to.’ Then you’ll see I’m right.”

Carefully, I tugged free. “If I judged every guy by Neil, I’d never go on a date again. Let it go. I’m asking him out.”

I felt better as I walked away. Life was too short not to take risks. How could I know if he was The One if I didn’t try?

*_*_*

What I find so refreshing about this one is a heroine who owns her sexuality and doesn't believe in labels, and yet is oddly hopeful about romantic relationships. Plus, I know a lot of women like Jenny, who hold different standards for the same behavior depending on whether you're a man or a woman. They often mean well, but that sort of gender-bias thinking is dangerous, especially when it comes to how we raise our daughters. Hopefully, I'll get to this one some day.

I have a new release coming out on Sunday, so I'll be back on Monday to talk more about it. This weekend, I get more bonding time with my daughter and friends, though I have a ton of chores to do around the house before that can happen. Plus, meal planning for the next week. Since we've gone more vegan-oriented, it takes more forethought if I don't want to get bored. That's always my downfall. I want food to be interesting. When it fails, I make bad choices. I need to break that mindset. And I will. In time.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Friday Flash

A few weeks ago, I judged at Siobhan Muir's #ThursThreads contest and realized how much I'd missed writing flash fiction. I joined in the following week, which means I now have three different snippets of brand new story ideas. I love this way of inspiration.

The first had to be centered around the military in some way, so I went futuristic.

*_*_*

One of these days, she’s going to get caught. The password she steals on a weekly basis from Central will fail. The sentry will change his routine. The commander will finally decide the relics are better off destroyed.

But as she slips beneath the imaging sensors that line the corridor, Right Lieutenant Nika Kivale doesn’t think about what can go wrong. Her thoughts focus beneath the compound, in a room her peers don’t realize exists, a space of shame her leaders refuse to acknowledge. She stops to disable the heat arrays beyond the next door, then counts to twenty before thumbing the release to open it.

From there, it’s only a single staircase before she’s inside the archives. The hardest part about standing amidst the relics is not deciding what to save, but ignoring the guilt that threatens to immobilize her from acting at all. These are the last remains of those who were lost to the war, lost to peace, kept here without thought to the families who mourn for them, simply because they were the enemy’s fallen and not her side’s own.

She wouldn’t want her mother to never have closure. Stealing what she can to return to parents who weren’t as lucky as hers is the least she can do.

One of these days, she’s going to get caught.

But as she slinks back to her quarters to prepare the package to send off in the morning, she knows…today is not that day.

*_*_*

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the opener of a novel. I'm going to expand it to flesh out the actual breaking in and what she's doing, but this is an excellent way of introducing Nika and showing just who she is as a person. I imagine it's going to have something to do with something she steals and sends out that is going to come back and bite her in the ass somehow. The specifics of finding that out intrigue me. A lot.

And with that, I'm signing off for the week. I have fun plans for tomorrow. I'm going into San Francisco with my daughter, her BFF, and BFF's mom (who happens to be a very close friend) to go to Modcloth's pop-up shop. The girls have homecoming in September, so we're hoping to find dresses for them. It'll be a girlie day out, which I don't get enough of. Plus, my daughter is only home for three more years before going to college, so I want to milk that for all it's worth.

Have a great weekend, everyone!