"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
First, here’s the prompts for the January 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Ghost Story
Set in a Desert
Involving a Roll of Film
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 January 16th, 2023.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage and the results were the Three of Hearts (a Ghost Story) the Ace of Clubs (a Roll of Film) and the Four of Diamonds (a Desert.)
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week!
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
In it, I set my happily-married husband and husband private eyes Josh and Adam on another case, this one involving a surfboard.
Josh hung on to the end of the surfboard with one hand and clung to the carved horse he was sitting on with the other as the merry-go-round at the middle of the carnival spun around and around. He was ready to puke. And he really, really hated carousel music.
“I think we lost them,” Adam said hanging on to the other end of the surfboard. They hoped the body of the big carved horse hid the board from anybody watching.
“We’re just lucky they didn’t get a good look at us, or any look at us.” Adam said.
Here’s another snippet:
“Yeah,” Josh said queasily. “All they know is we’ve got the surfboard.”
Adam grinned at Josh as the merry-go-round slowed down. “For better or worse, remember?”
“Including spinning horses!” Josh said managing a smile.
Okay, that’s it for this first week of 2023! See you next week! —-jeff
It’s been a busy December (and a busy 2022) so I’m going to do the first draw for the 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge next week, January 9th, 2023. We could all use a little breather!
So, I’ll see you in a week!
Until then, here’s the draw sheet I’m going to use.
Again, Happy New Year! See you next week! ———–mike
Flash Draw Sheet for 2023 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)
The voice was Shawn from the bottom bunk. He’d been occupying the cell longer so he got dibs. Besides, he was bigger than Rodriguez even though both of them worked-out a lot.
Shawn reached up and banged the bottom of the steel bunk Rodriguez slept on.
“Hey, Rodriguez!”
“Yeah, wha?” Rodriguez said, still half-asleep. He and Shawn trusted each other as much as anybody in the prison could. Still, Rodolpho Rodriguez slept with one eye open.
“Listen.” Shawn said.
Rodriguez propped himself up on his elbows. No riot. No yelling. As quiet as this place got. Then he heard the faint pop-pop-popping. Guns.
No, the sound was wrong. Fireworks. Outside the walls.
“Happy New Year, man!” Shawn said.
“Yeah, right.” Rodriguez said, laying back down and pulling the thin blanket over him again. “Some new year,” he mumbled.
At least six more years to do. They’d piled the years on a twenty-something Latino kid already carrying a big jacket. He’d be in his mid-thirties when he got out.
Six more years.
But he knew kids who hadn’t made it to thirty. And he could start over on the outside, prison record or no. He was keeping his nose clean and with his reputation as a fighter not a lot of people messed with him.
What was that image of the New Year? An old man leaving and a baby showing up? New opportunities. He could take a few classes, learn more about computer stuff. And there was always the old saying about where there’s life there’s hope.
“Hey!” Rodriguez said. Shawn opened his eyes. Rodriguez was leaning his head over the top bunk and grinning broadly. “Happy New Year.”
The two men stretched back on the steel bunks. Things would get better. And worse. But for now, there was the refreshing darkness of sleep and the promise of a new year.
—end—
Author’s Note: No Friday Flash Fiction this week (the new picture goes up January 6th, 2023!) so I posted this different sort of story for New Year’s Eve.
My Husband Darryl and myself wish all the readers (and writers) out there the happiest of new years for 2023!
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
I’ve posted about my series guy Billy Gonzalez here before, and I may be cheating as this story dates back to before I’d outed him as bisexual, but in this story, “At The Stroke of Midnight” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2016/12/31/spooky-new-years-eve-everybody/ he has other things on his mind.
I have always considered New Year’s Eve to be spookier than Halloween. What if there’s more to the change of dates than just getting a new calendar? Here we find Billy babysitting his two young nephews on December thirty-first as they talk about a legend involving the passing of the old year:
“We wanna see Old Man New Year,” his older nephew Alex said.
“Who?” Tyler asked.
“The old man isn’t the new year, at least not anymore,” Billy said with a laugh. “The little baby is the New Year.”
“What little baby?” Tyler asked.
“Not mine,” Billy said with a grin.
Here’s a little more after twenty-something Billy sends his nephews off to bed and dozes in the living room only to be awakened by a sound and an intruder wielding a scythe…
Billy realized what he was seeing; someone dressed up as Old Man New Year. He could just make out a banner wrapped around the figure with the year written on it, the last number trailing into a smudge. Billy could barely make out a large, dark hourglass hanging from the figure’s belt.
But how had he gotten in here? Then the figure stepped into the light. Its arms were almost skeletal and its face was frozen in an open-mouthed expression, skin withered making the head look like one of those dolls with the head carved out of an apple.
And on that eerie note, with the tower clock in the distance chiming midnight we close out this post in Rainbow Snippets. Happy New Year to you and may your 2023 be free of any scares and may your happiness last for more than a snippet! —-jeff
It’s been a while since I posted one of these progress reports; my non-writing life has been busy this year. For those readers who don’t know my Mom, Barbara Baker, died on December 10th of this year after spending most of the year in hospice care. I went over almost every day to be with her at her retirement home where they took very good care of her. I consider it very fortunate that she was largely not in any pain or very much discomfort and was able to play bingo with friends or watch TV and snooze (while I sat and wrote!)
But it did take up some extra time and I did slack off on writing any new full-length stories this year. The bulk of my 2022 production has been flash fiction. Doing that, and the love of my husband Darryl, really kept me going and the amazing thing is this year somehow did not feel as awful as it probably should have. But my Mom kept her faculties and she and my late Dad were both proud of my being a published writer, one of the reasons I’m grateful for my persistence.
The big writing news was the opening of “RoM/Mantic Reads,” a M/M romance e-zine started by Fiona Glass. Fiona liked my weekly flash fiction stories and invited me to be a regular contributor, so I happily joined in. I’m in good company with writers like Kaje Harper, Jay Mountney and Fiona (among others.)
I published three non-fiction articles in RoM/Mantic Reads.
I published one poem in RoM/Mantic Reads.
I have one story in submission to RMM that is part of a serial I’m writing (the first part was posted on the site earlier.) I also have several stories in progress or finished ready to send off to RMM.
Besides the RoM/Mantic Reads work:
I posted 12 monthly columns for Queer Sci Fi.
One story. “Nereus,” was posted on the new “Orion’s Beau Quarterly” early in 2022.
I wrote at least 64 flash fiction stories, mostly posted for the weekly Friday Flash Fics and the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, both of which I moderate. (I gotta be out of my mind moderating two fiction sites! But it’s fun and rewarding!)
Under the name “Mike Mayak,” I submitted four stories, got three rejected with one still out there.
As “Jeff Baker,” I submitted 11 stories and received 10 rejections. Not all of these were the same stories, some were for stories I submitted in 2021 (or earlier!)
I have several stories out there in slushpiles; the editors acknowledged their turnaround time would take a while, so I may still be waiting next December for the results.
Most of my writing in 2022 was in the flash fiction form as I did not really make time to write something longer, partly due to looking in on my Mom. But I have still kept up to my personal dictum of always having something out in submission and I have several stories out in the ether (not counting stuff I haven’t ever heard back on for almost a decade!) including at least two more stories for “RoM/Mantic Reads.”
I have a full-length mystery a friend of mine beta read for me early in the year that I need to revise. I’m also working on a flash fiction sci-fi story that’s due early in January. (Really early in January; I have to work on it tonight!)
I don’t intend to quit doing this anytime soon.
All the best to the writers and readers out there for the New Year!
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
The radio in the garage was playing “White Christmas,” after playing the weather forecast for temperatures in the 60s through New Year’s. Typical for Pending, Kansas, Eddie de Obras thought as he made sure the fridge was stocked with sodas. There was a little wire Christmas tree on top of the fridge, with little red balls running all the way through it. It was up there all year round and had been there since Eddie had been little.
Eddie stood there and looked out the doorway. Maybe he ought to close the big garage door. No, he’d wait until everybody got there.
“Wow,” he breathed. Christmas Eve, 1983. Ten years earlier he might have been waiting up for Santa Claus.
“Hey, Eddie!” Called a familiar voice. Buddy Sykes, tall and thin was ambling towards the garage. “Eat everything yet?”
“Naaah, you’re the first one here.” Eddie said.
The old garage had been their hangout when his Dad wasn’t using it as his workshop. He’d built a new garage attached to the house instead of this one that dated back to the 1920s. He’d hung a big sign just inside the door: “de Obras’ Garage.”
Twenty minutes later they were all in the garage, seated on makeshift chairs and his Dad’s workbench. Liza, Scott, Buddy, Cheyenne and Marcus. They’d hung out in the garage all through junior and senior high school; sharing stories, snacking and drinking the occasional beer they shouldn’t have had. And now, High School was over.
“Okay,” Eddie said standing up, can of soda in hand. “This may not be our last Christmas getting together but Buddy and Cheyenne are going off to college next year so we’re all going to be different. Growing up.”
“Yeah,” Scott said, munching on a chip.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to us as we go our separate ways, but I know we all wanted this last evening here in the garage.”
“Yeah, that’s why we all sprang for the soda, chips and dip,” Lisa said.
The others laughed.
“I figure that’s our Christmas present to each other,” Eddie said.
“Remember when Scott snuck out of his house and spent the night here?” Buddy said.
They all nodded.
“Hey, I was supposed to meet a girl here!” Scott protested. “She never showed.”
They all laughed. Scott glanced at Eddie and grinned. That had really been the night he’d had a blowup with his Dad and had left the house. Eddie had brought leftovers out to him. They’d been what? Thirteen years old?
They were all approaching nineteen now.
“So, I raise my glass to you,” Eddie said.
“You mean you raise your can?” Cheyenne said. More laughter.
“Okay, I’ve got something to say,” Marcus said standing up, pulling out a paper bag.
“He’s gonna get mushy,” Lisa said.
“I know we agreed no presents…” Marcus said.
“We can never afford them anyway.” Eddie said.
“But this is a special night,” Marcus said. “And I thought we’d want something to remember it by. To remember us by. Besides, I owe all of you money.” Marcus grinned and held the bag up higher “So everybody reach in and grab one.”
“Better not be full of yogurt or something,” Buddy grumbled.
They each reached into the bag as Marcus held it near each of them in turn. Each one pulled out a small, solid plastic car, the kind they would find in a toy bin somewhere that would fit in a little kid’s hand.
“I got them over at the truck stop in Millington on my delivery route,” Marcus said. “Somehow I thought of you guys.”
They looked at the little cars. No moving wheels, just solid plastic, Nonetheless, Scott scooted his across his legs and made a “Vroom” sound.
“I know it’s silly, and yeah it’s mushy…” Marcus said. “But, Merry Christmas, okay?”
“Yeah.” “Merry Christmas.” “Thanks.”
They looked around at each other. They weren’t kids anymore.
“Okay, pass me some more of that dip,” Lisa said.
The summer sunlight shone in through the open garage door as the little girl ran into the garage.
“Whatcha doin’ Granpa?” She asked.
“Just straightening up some stuff.” Eddie said. “Wanna help?”
Eddie de Obras picked up his granddaughter and set her on the workbench. No glass or anything sharp there, he noted. Couldn’t lift stuff as easy as he could when he was younger than fifty-seven.
“Hey, what’s this?”she asked pulling something off the top shelf and turning it over in her hands.
It was a faded, green plastic car.
Eddie grinned. “A memory, sweetie,” he said. “Here, set that back down and let’s go see if Grandma has lunch ready, okay?”
“Okay!” she said, climbing down to the floor.
Eddie de Obras followed his granddaughter out the garage, turning and pausing to glance back at his younger years as he shut the door.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
As should be obvious, this is a riff on the gang hanging out in the basement on “That 70’s Show.” It actually came to me in a dream a few months ago when I was dozing off.
ABOUT THAT PICTURE;
The prompt picture was taken by me in early January 2020 at a convenience store and inspired a different and yet unwritten story, but I decided to go with “Christmas at de Obra’s Garage”
We’re taking a break for the weeks after Christmas and New Year’s and we’ll have another prompt pic on Friday January 6, 2023 (!!!)
On behalf of my Husband Darryl and myself, I wish all my readers the very best for this Holiday season! —–jeff
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
Here’s some snippets as 17-year old Jason Vasquez has been evacuated to Camp Black Rock, known as “Shit City,” after a disaster hit the West Coast:
We form a line, and I have a chance to look around, The camp’s actually more like a small town—the main road is paved with the same black material that makes up the bricks. Surprising sprigs of green shrubbery line the fronts of each building, and solar panels shine on the rooftops. Thank god. They have power. I squeeze my cell phone in my pocket. Though a cell connection out here in the middle of nowhere is probably too much to hope for.
Here’s a little more, and about how Camp Black Rock is nicknamed “Shit City.” It involves a clever use of human waste products and a very special form of yeast…
My stomach rebels, and I look away before I can heave-ho into Flynt’s mask. When I look back, someone in gray overalls and a rebreather is stirring the shit-and-piss mixture with a long metal rod. “What is this place? Hell?” I wish I were anywhere else but here.
Flynt snorts. “Close. This is where they make the bricks.”
I stare at him, then back at the vat of waste. “From shit?”
Okay, that’s enough for now! Scott is at the forefront of the current crop of LGBT writers who use LGBT characters (like Jason here) in stories that blend speculative science and realistic protagonists and has earned Scott comparisons to Robert Heinlein. Anything J. Scott Coatsworth writes is worth reading.
The big brown bear muttered to himself as he pushed the shopping cart down the aisle of the supermarket.
“Frozen food…no need for that…stick to the list. Oh, hey, blueberries. Gotta have me some blueberries.”
With one big paw he opened the glass door of the display case and reached in carefully with the other and set the small packet of frozen blueberries in the cart. Better than when he’d accidentally ripped open a package with his claws.
The bear glanced at his list. Not much more and the bottled water was tempting. He shrugged. The case would be too big.
He stood over the frozen meats.
“Venison…venison…venison…there!”
It had become so much easier when he’d realized that “venison” meant “deer meat.”
He wheeled the cart down the aisle with the magazines and passed a young man in a sleeveless shirt, showing a lot of tattoos. The young man looked up, pointing at the blue paper mask covering the lower part of his face and pointed to the bear’s mask, nodded and gave a thumbs-up.
The bear nodded politely and moved down the aisle, amazed that with the little mask nobody seemed to notice that he was a bear.
He turned down the next aisle and stopped. There were rows and rows of shelved jars and containers of honey. Some glass, some plastic, some shaped like beehives, some shaped like cute little bear cubs. The brownish-gold liquid seemed to glitter and beckon in the store lights.
“Just turn away,” the bear muttered. “Go down the next aisle. Just. Turn. Away.”
With a roar, the bear lunged for the shelves.
A half-hour later, his fur smeared with honey and shreds of containers the bear walked out of the store. He had been asked to leave.
“Oh well, I can always shop online,” he muttered to himself as he ambled down the road out of town that led to the forest.
“And the first thing I order is a freezer.”
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
I plotted out this story in my Mom’s apartment in her retirement home while she dozed and watched TV., as I had done many times before. She passed away peacefully later that evening at the age of 91.
She and my late Dad were always very proud that I was a published writer.
authorjeffbaker 