Thursday, April 12, 2012

Flashing Debra Kristi

Earlier this week I was catching up on Debra Kristi's Blog and reading about her self-induced writing retreat, located in a secret location. I thought about how wonderful it must be to get away from it all.

Taking a break from her book, she was inspired to write a flash fiction story. She challenged her readers to choose one of her photos and write a flash fiction story on their own blog.

I chose a photo depicting snowy ski runs above a Bavarian-style building. Here is my story.
I awoke around 7 am after a sound night's sleep. I lay in bed and rubbed the palms of my hands together before doing cat stretches. Yoga was a great way to wake up in the morning. I sat up and moved my hand to pick up the glass of water on my nightstand. One glass of water in the morning replenished the body.

I thought about the long day yesterday, packing up and gathering supplies, then trying to secure transportation. 

I had nearly downed my glass of water when I spat out the last mouthful. There was bright sunshine seeping through the edges of the curtains.

I threw the glass down and leaped out of bed yanking the curtains open. The sunshine was blazing in the sky. Grabbing the binoculars from my window sill I looked through the lenses and scoped out the ski runs. There were seven visible to my eyes. 

After a long study I could not find humans or otherwise on the runs, but I did notice one thing. 

The snow was not as tightly packed on the hills as last evening, and I could hear a dripping noise outside my window.

Just then the door to my suite slammed against the wall, causing me to drop my binoculars.

My cohort cried, "Get packed up now, the snow is melting! We have to get to higher ground."

I nodded at him and started packing up my gear. It was done in record time.

I took one last look around the room. This would have been the perfect location to get some writing done.

9 comments:

  1. I love the "Flashing Debra Kristi." Haha! Yay for you taking Debra up on the flash fiction challenge. You and I were the only ones! And wouldn't it be nice to get away at that ski resort, stay in one of the rooms for a week and write our hearts out? Have a good Friday the 13th!

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    1. I'm glad you could play too Lyn! I'll be figuring out a way to do a writer's retreat sometime this year.

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    2. Great story! I like the suspense wrapped into the everyday-ness of waking up, drinking water, seeing sunshine, and realizing the snow is melting. To me as the reader I think "Oh pretty, sunshine through the glass. Pretty ski slopes and sunshine." Clearly what's happening underneath, though, isn't so pretty!

      Anyway, nice job!

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  2. I recently watched a documentary about an entire village buried in the snow unexpectedly after something like this. It was a freak the way the ice had packed from the weather pattern. Scary stuff.

    Thanks for playing Mel!

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    1. Thanks for sharing - it's fun playing!

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    2. I remember I read a middle school book around Grade 4 called
      "Landslide" or something like that. I had a look online but couldn't find it. I think it took place in Bavaria or Switzerland and it was translated to English.

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  3. Hi Mel! Stopping by from Debra's blog. Great piece--I guess a natural disaster is an actual excuse for not writing--unlike Pinterest, FB or Twitter! LOL

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    1. Definitely and you know how we writers love to make up excuses!

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