“Hey, how long you been working on that novel, man? Forever, right? When are you going to finish that sucker up?”
IT’S 5:22 AM. I’VE BEEN AWAKE since 3:45 with a case of the distractions. Something keeps nagging at me: if I’m awake, I should be downstairs working on my novel. But I’m stuck on one scene. I’ve started it again and again.
And yes, I know all the techniques for breaking through to the good stuff–it’s what I write about here. But sometimes I’d just like to grab an idea that flies through my head, write it, and finish it–all in under an hour. If the novel is your form, you don’t get to do that very often.
Because, when you think about it, how often can we say we fully engaged with an idea, gave it everything we had for an hour or so, smiled on what we’d done, and moved on? Given that my mind points in 20 different directions at once, that’s, oh…about every 7 to 10 years. How many 7 to 10 years does one person have?
That’s why I love 100 word fictions. They remind me of the days I used to write poetry long ago. I wrote every day, and almost every day, I finished something. Good times.
I just ran across one I wrote for Nick Faber at Name Your Tale a while back. Occasionally he will send me a few reader-submitted titles and I’ll turn out a 100 word “tale” for each. Nick, and his partners Jeremy and Jenny are very industrious–they write like crazy themselves, with a whole stable of quck fingered associates and guests. If you want to kill a little time reading some mind-stretching fiction, I highly recommend surfing over there – Nameyourtale.com
Honestly, I don’t remember writing this one. I remember Nick emailing me, “Bill, you misread the title. It was Accidental Perjury.” I apologized and wrote one to the correct title. But Nick held onto “Purgatory” and after a while, it appeared, title submitted by “anonymous.”
Accidental Purgatory
“BEHOLD. Purgatory is no accident,” he announced at the breakfast table. “Therefore I’ve decided we will break out of this situation, this…life we have here.” Because finally, it was simple, so simple. “Dad, can I have another Eggo?” BEHOLD THE MAN. His gaze slanted up at the ceiling, pierced it like an RPG, and the answer, incontrovertible as always, was waiting in a fiery cloud of Godness. “One more Eggo and you burn in Hell!” Stunned the little beast. “Stop it, Travis, you’re scaring her,” he heard. Then the ceiling opened up in flames and the way was clear.
