Lizzie Stark

A sneak peek at the newest Harry Dresden novel.... Read More

Anyone who reads my blog is probably aware that I have an unholy obsession with preserving foods, and that in 17 days I will undergo a life-changing operation, a double-mastectomy with reconstruction done on my healthy breasts. I’ve always cooked, and frankly eaten (hello, new 20-lb gut), to deal with stress, but lately, perhaps because I’m [...]... Read More

Just a little note to say: I know I'm viciously late on my most recent flash, but it's for a good reason. I took last week off to start planning my novel for National Novel Writing Month, which began on Sunday along with the month of November. I'll catch up with the aforementioned Superlative exercise as soon as I've written my 50,000 words.... Read More

Stephanie Meyer needs an editor. I contend that a writer gets one free "career" use of the term "smoldering eyes," but Meyer uses the verb at least five times, just in Twilight. (One of my close associates refers to this as "Cobalt Blue" writing) Don't get me started on her lazy and tedious obsession with gazes, eyes, and smiles. In a 498-page novel, there are 294 mentions of "eyes," at least 31 gazes, and 184 mentions of smiling characters. It's enough to make an MFA's eyes fill up with tears, as she collapses sobbing into her unpublished, but smoldering, manuscript. Of course, my husband and I are reading the book aloud to each other anyway. While individually, our tastes skew to concept sci-fi and literary fiction, our collective taste tends toward middle-brow genre novels featuring vampires, medieval fantasy, or other stuff written for teenagers.... Read More

"The Nicest Kid in the Universe," is a parable about Franky Gorky, the titular child, for although he is the "nicest" kid, "he wasn't the smartest kid." Because Gorky isn't smart, he doesn't realize that the moon waxes and wanes on its own; he believes that his wishes are responsible for this,  a fact which leads him to run across the street on Christmas morning as his grandmother is parking across the street, and get "rubbed out" by a drunk driver.  The story ends with the introduction of a first person narrator and a moral, as if it has been told to frighten a child into good behavior.... Read More

My response to last week's "Restrained Impulse" exercise is below. I have to say, I'm not sure I hewed as close to the exercise as I could have. I wanted to present the story of a gang flunky who couldn't keep from laughing as a way of replicating Robert Hill Long's dynamic of a small girl who couldn't keep from dancing. A flaw in the story, I think, is that my main character doesn't have a strong relationship with a single person, as Long's girl does with her father. He also feels a little generic to me... Read More

When I discovered that journalist Ethan Gilsdorf had written a book about gaming and fantasy culture, my first reaction was to curse his name for beating me to the punch. But if anything, Gilsdorf's Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks proves that the topic of why people chose to inhabit imaginary realms is so meaty that a single book couldn't possibly cover everything.... Read More

I can't believe it's Wednesday already. This week's exercise is based on Robert Hill Long's "The Restraints," found on p. 131 of the book Flash Fiction, edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka.... Read More

Here's my response to last week's Meta Exercise. Since Julio Cortázar used a narrative piece of art, a novel, to construct his excellent short short. I thought I'd give myself a challenge and try to do the same thing with a less experiential sort of art, in this case, sculpture. Points to anyone who can identify the sculptor.... Read More

Last week I neglected the blog due to a family emergency, but this week I'm back with a short-short exercise based on Julio Cortázar's "A Continuity of Parks," found on p. 137 of the book Flash Fiction, edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka.... Read More