This past week, with my Art of Flash class over, I started my NaNoWriMo challenge of writing three essays per week. The good news is that I completed my challenge this week. The less-good news is that I’m 99% certain that I didn’t get anything publishable out of it. But that’s okay. It’s a writing exercise, for learning and for fun.

To help with that mindset, I’m keeping a note in my essay file called “Reflections: Why it did or didn’t work.” For each essay, I’m jotting down a few thoughts about the process, which is helping me clarify what I’m learning. Bonus: these notes can inform my weekly blog “share-out,” starting today!

Note: I’m only just now realizing that I neglected to give two of my essays a title this week. I will make sure to give them to all next week, as titles are quite important in flash writing!

Essay 1

Genre: Fiction

Format: Story told in reverse, in ten blocks (10, the end of the story’s timeline is the first block read; 1, the start of the story’s timeline, is the last).

Plot: An ob-gyn is forced to do an emergency C-section on an 8-months-pregnant woman who’s just been in a car accident, on the same day he decides to leave his wife for the male nurse he’s been having an affair with.

What I learned: Telling a story backward is very hard! It needs to make sense AND maintain tension when read in either direction. That means information has to be shared in a certain order. My first attempt failed completely; I think it works better when the story has a lot of drama, as in my second attempt.

Essay 2

Genre: Modern fantasy (based on a fairy tale)

Format: Story told in dialogue only.

Plot: Mr. Robin Hood is throwing a highbrow charity event for the GivePoor foundation. Lady Marian is attending, as is Father Tuck, the Franciscan Friar. The Merrie Men, a gay burlesque performing group, are providing the entertainment. Trouble begins when Prince John, heir to the principality of Nottingham (off the coast of England) arrives on the scene.

What I learned: This was SUCH a fun writing exercise, imagining how the cast of Robin Hood would behave in a modern context. Writing in dialogue was most challenging when there were more than two people in the scene, because their voices had to be distinct and it had to be clear whom they were addressing.

Essay 3

My third essay was quite short– I was aiming for 250 words– so I’m just going to end by pasting it here. It started as a personal essay, a remembrance of the morning after my son was born, but at the very end it turned on me and added a fantasy element. I love the ending; it’s funny and surprising and apt. The rest of it isn’t quite finalized. Remember, it’s still just a writing exercise, so be gentle with your criticism!

After The Birth

I snapped out of a shallow sleep with the thought in my head: Something’s wrong. He’s gone. Pressing the buzzer next to my bed, I waited for a long moment, but there was only silence.

I eased out of bed, aching, my feet hitting the cold floor with a wince. My husband was still sleeping in his chair. Let him rest. This burn, this ache in my chest, could not wait.

I slid my feet into slippers, opened the door as quietly as I could. Shuffled down the hall, one leg limping half-numb from the epidural. I was making this hard on myself, I knew. I could’ve buzzed again, waited for the nurse to bring him. But life was supposed to be harder, wasn’t it? I was a mother now. 

I reached the newborn nursery window and searched, bleary-eyed, frantic. There he was. I tapped on the glass, asked the nurse for him. I wanted him back. It was my heart, my beating heart wrapped in that receiving blanket. My blood pulsed beneath the tender skin of his temple. His tiny hand was curled around the memory of my thumb.

They rolled the cradle cart into the hallway, and tears rolled down my cheeks. It wasn’t fast enough. I needed him back inside me. I wanted to tuck him deep in the pouch of my belly where he’d be safe and warm. Where I could protect him, always, against fear, illness, bullies, cruelty, loss. Where I could cover his ears against stinging insults, cover his eyes against frightening sights. 

“He’s fine,” the nurse reassured me. She looked as though she’d seen my expression on many a new mother. 

“He is now,” I said, and I picked up my baby and swallowed him whole.