Authors Electric

Last month I blogged about how I'd started to take photographs to support my blog posts - Picture It . I received a few positive comments (thanks folks) however the one left by  Bill Kirton  really struck a cord: " A great idea, Lynne, and I bet, as readers of the blog looked at each, ideas for stories started nudging into their minds. That's certainly what happened as I read it. Wouldn't it be interesting to post just one of them and have people submit 500-word flash fiction stories inspired by it.  Great displacement activity." So whilst I've been out and about with the dog (we do a lot of  walking)  I've been  taking  photographs of the 'odd' things people have left behind . I guess you know what's coming next. Yep I'm throwing down the  gauntlet . Here are three images I'm hoping will inspire your muse. I'm not expecting you to craft a 500-word flash fiction story (but don't let me stop you if you get that urge) but...

Me doing research on army sniffer dogs. While on a school visit recently when I’d been telling the class about the writing activities I get up to, one young lad asked me, "Don't you ever get bored with writing?" After a moment’s thought I answered him truthfully, that no, I don’t get bored. Tired yes and there have been times when I’ve fallen asleep at my keyboard and woken to find my head lolling attractively(!) on my chest and a load of zzzzzzzzs on my screen. At times like that I’ve thanked my lucky stars that my fingers hadn’t rested on the delete button as I nodded off. But bored – not a chance. I went on to tell the boy who’d asked the question, that if I find that I’m writing something boring, then I need to stop and make changes, because if its boring for me to write it, the reader is certainly going to be bored reading it. However, his question made me realise just how fortunate I am to be doing a job that I love and which I think of as a pleasure r...