The Rise and Fall of Yellow Things | 50 Word Story
Surrounded by guards, the parent-murdering despot gave a jolly smile.
So close, but too far to reach. Especially for a boy.
If he did hit him, he’d be captured. Jailed. Killed.
The boy looked for something to throw. He weighed a lemon in his hand.
It was worth the risk.
This is my entry for @jayna's super fun 50 Word Story Challenge. The prompt this week was "lemon." I guess the message (if there is one) is that when life sends you lemons, throw them.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.thinknzombie.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-yellow-things-50-word-story/
Good story, @thinknzombie! Great job pulling together an intense setting, as well as characters and a story arc. Well done. And I like the spunk of this kid in the face of enormous odds against him.
That child sounds like my youngest. Hopefully without the parent murdering part XD
I love this!!
You remind me of a story I always wanted to write but never did. My office mate and I used to pull the big red rubber bands from our trash cans (used to hold the plastic trash bag in place) and played Rubber Band Wars. (This was 31+ years ago, and I was only a quarter of a century old, so don't judge.) Office Mate Lou started writing a novel about a journalist who loses his eye while covering a fire. CIA recruits him to wear a replacement eye with a camcorder built in. Hey, this was 1988, long before the tech we have today. He should have written it. Now it's obsolete. "American Eye." By Lou Rapier. You saw it here first. I think he could still do something with this. My contribution was the woman hiding in an office while the villain searches for her. She peels a rubber band from the trash can before he arrives and prays her aim will be accurate when he comes through the door.... (I could use this in a flash fiction! It's mine, not Lou's! And I will not mention the Chocolate Cake Incident!)
Some stories gestate longer than others! Write all the things, @carolkean!
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Someday. Thank you Jayna!
LOVE the title, too, btw!
Have you ever looked into @freewritehouse and @jayna's Micro-Fiction contest? Well, of course you know all about it. You're a young, tech-savvy, active Steemian, and I'm now more than half a century old, and forever plagued by techno-glitches and formatting errors. Rules and Regulations continue to befuddle me. But I am Still Here!, so there's that.
Here's what Jayna wrote, for anyone else reading this:
We collaborate with the #freewrite community and @FreeWriteHouse to give writers an opportunity to polish those freewrite fiction pieces and re-post the refined version. A thank you to @mariannewest for helping to spread the word! Contest entrants, be sure to review the rules below and include the weekly prompt word in your story.
Andrew, I'd love to see you around - I limit myself to roughly one group (freewritehouse) because trying to keep up with more (#Pulp-Rev would love you, by the way!!) just gets me into too much trouble.
Cheers!
Keangaroo
Thank you so much for the mention. These days you probably won’t cross paths with Mr. @thinknzombie unless you are involved with the Inkubator community. They have an awesome bunch of folks — very serious about getting work through development and editing and off to publishers! I get over to their server when I can. Sounds like you stick to the Freewritehouse, though. I totally get how it helps with one’s life focus and energy management to put a limit on how many communities to get involved with!
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Inkubator sounds like a great community with some of the best writers I met at Steemit. I should expand my horizons, I know, but I shut off Discord (too many temptations, too many fun conversations to distract me from writing). And every community requires a certain level of involvement. I can find time for less than one thing, At best. You multi-taskers amaze me! Your energy, enthusiasm, ambtion, and accomplishments blow me away. And now I'm heading out to pull more weeds. "A waste of time," says my sister. Meh. It's therapeutic, despite the chiggers, poison ivy, and all. TTFN - and you're more than welcome for the mention. If I could, I'd whale-slap you instead. :)
Carol, you had joined us, before shutting down your Discord I guess. Our focus is on the pro publishing side these days. Andrew and I are appearing together in a hardcover collection out this month. We've done the microfictions in the past but these days we're hard on the pro level and blogging stuff makes it ineligible most places.
That's fantastic!!
Ah, the price of being too isolated. I will try to get out more. (For me, getting out more means joining another internet group! LOL)
When the time comes that you're back on the mainstream writing horse, you know how to find us. But for us, it's working. I've got a pro pub and a growing stack of smaller ones in both fiction and poetry. Just took second place at Balticon's speculative poetry contest.
Thanks Carol. I've stopped posting my work on on the steem blockchain for now and am focusing on mainstream publishing. I have a few stories coming out in print this year as a result. Putting our work on the blockchain where it is considered "published" reduces options for publishing since it means giving away your first publishing rights. The INKubator on Discord is where anyone serious about their writing should be. Come and take another look.
I'll get back on Discord if that's the best way to connect. Congratulations on publishing, Andrew - I look forward to more of your stories! I still love the girl who could fly. :) You have a gift!