Twitter Fiction

I've recently discovered Twitter Fiction. Have you heard of it? Awesome stuff. It's telling a story in 140 characters. Not 140 words... but characters. The length of a twitter post. While I don't have a twitter account, I find the challenge of writing such a short story compelling. Now, keep in mind that 140 characters (which includes all punctuation and even spaces) only amounts to about 25 words.

What I find the most challenging is hitting that 140 dead on. Think about it, if you write and edit and you have 139 characters, how do you add just one more? It usually takes rewriting whole sentences or thoughts in order to do it... and then, whoops! You're at 141!

If you're a writer, try it! I bet you'll find it fun. If you don't consider yourself a writer, try it anyway. You might be surprised at what you come up with.

There are communities for 140 character fiction. One that I check each day (because they post a new twit fic every week day) is One Forty Fiction. And if you check out their home page today, you'll see one of my very own 140s as the story of the day. It's Dad and Me week over there, so while my Dad story isn't a happy one, it was judged worthy for the site. I'm damned happy 'bout that. And if you're checking out this blog later than June 15, 2011, this link should take you right to the twit fic.

Also, check out Gayle Beveridge's twitter fiction page. She's an awesome writer!

I Very Nearly Lost the Owlery

It was a close thing....

I live on about 5 acres of land, some of it is hilly and forested. Over the last few years I've been cleaning out and decorating walking trails up the hill and through the forest. Unfortunately, most of the trees are brittle white pine. They tend to snap easily.

We had a wind storm the other night.

Yeah.

Last night I checked the trails.

That tree in the middle? It's a big one and now it is also a headless one.

Here's the top of it lying across a trail:



And here's my poor owlery. I'm not certain if any owls were lost, though it wasn't the bulk of the tree that hit it, just a few branches. Please don't dwell on the flag - it's tattered and needs to be gotten rid of.

The trail the tree fell on is actually Toad Hollow, but that spot above was too perfect for the 'owlery' to worry that owls aren't toads. (I also have a Gnome Knoll, a Mac's Menagerie (named for one of my Grandpas), and a short bird trail that I haven't given thought to a name for).

On a brighter note, we have our first apple in our mini-orchard. It's a Macintosh!