First, here’s the prompts for the July 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:

A “Just So Story“

Involving a Plastic Elephant

Set at a Radio Station.

Now, on to the details.

Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.

Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (and hopefully have one of my own written!) the week of July 17th, 2023.

As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage and the results were the King of Hearts (a “Just So Story,” like Rudyard Kipling’s, but a folk tale thingie will do!) the Five of Diamonds (a radio station) and the King of clubs (a Plastic Elephant.)

So we will write a version of one of Kipling’s Just So Stories, set at a radio station involving a plastic elephant. (And I promise next year, no more pastiches of other people’s writing in the lists!)

So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week!

Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you next week!

And have fun!

——mike