Today's Flash Fic: Swimming in Air

Elle plunged her face into the air, felt the dryness wash over her skin. She exhaled through her nose and heard the bubbles rise to the surface. For a few seconds, Elle pretended she could swim immersed in air for hours, but soon her lungs cried out for water. She grudgingly returned to the sea.

Based on Danielle Tunstall's photo.

It's Just a Rope

In lieu of NaNoWriMo this year, I've opted to participate in some flash fiction on G+. The prompts are photographs posted daily by the organizer. This prompt was Evelyn Lamprey's pic of a B/W of sweet rottweiler with a rope toy. Cute picture. Tough prompt. I ended up tossing Rory's Story Cubes in the mix to help me along. Without further ado, today's submission:

It's just a rope.

But at times like these nothing else will do. Not the squeaky rubber bee or the soft turtle toy Murray snuggled with when his real litter mates had been adopted. It had to be the rope. He locked his teeth into it and held it candy-apple firm—he wasn't letting go. If you could hold on tightly enough, you could swing Murray around by that rope. If you could hold on tightly enough. There was no doubt about Murray. He held a fortress-like grip, until he chose to let go, usually when you were off balance. If you didn't know better, you'd think he got a perverse pleasure in watching you teetering. Was that a glint in his eye?

It's just a rope: so much energy, and drama, and pleasure, tied into two slobbery knots.

It's just a rope. 

An NCIS script? Are you nuts?

Over the last few weeks I've been tweeting then Facebooking with a newly discovered online friend who feeds my analytical writing side--the English major in me who likes to discuss story, symbolism, and the dreaded significance. We're not talking Shakespeare or Dickens or even Austen. We're talking NCIS. Up to this point we've created some McMayhem and some fantastic t-shirts dedicated to the writers of NCIS. But we've also caused one another to think about what we write, and how we learn about writing in different ways.

Colorguard28 writes that she's not a visual thinker, and that she struggles to see the images she writes. I, on the other hand, see the images and struggle to describe what I see with the detail that exists in my imagination. I've considered for months participating in Script Frenzy this year, but since I completely bombed at NaNoWriMo in the fall, I've hesitated. The more I've thought about it, the more committed I've become. The theatre muse who helped write 3 summer shows for the teen theatre is ready to try her hand a an NCIS script.