Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? | #1 of 7 (1547 words)

I took a Fiction Writing class this past semester to keep my sanity up in a whirlwind of drudgery, and it resulted in much more original writing than I'd expected, with only a small dose of my NaNo '08/'09 characters. This is the first assignment, in which we were assigned to write a story based on the old joke (if you can call it that), "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

( I am a coward. )

The Fight and The Jacket | #2 of 7 (192 and 219 words)

The assignment: Write two quick pieces of microfiction. Mine were a little over the suggested 150 word length, but I don't think it'll be counted against me.

( She has just been in a fight, and her opponent has no idea. )

( Ben wanted so badly to wear it. )

Hold Still | #3 of 7 (361 words)

The assignment: To write a quick story using only dialogue. This time I put aside the paranoia and general disorder that I tend to favor in my writing, and went for something lighter, but still close to my heart.

( 'I can't feel my toes anymore.' )

You look like a fist wearing that shirt. | #4 of 7 (431 words)

Okay, that's not the actual title. I can't think of anything that isn't lame like "Grocery Store," though. The assignment was to pick a situation out of a hat, and to allude to that situation in the story without directly saying it. It also had to be set in a grocery store; the story begins when the main character enters the store, and ends when they leave. My professor told me I was a little too quick with certain details, and he is right.

( Blood mixed with the sawdust of the supermarket floor, dripping from Elliott's elbow. )

Ned | #5 of 7 (873 words)

Assignment: Turn the tables on a usual power dynamic. This is probably the most wtf thing I've ever written, involving carnivorous hairpieces.

( 'I feel like I ate away all my lipgloss at lunch... Do you have a mirror, Aline?' )

Audio Transcript #2 | #6 of 7 (895 words)

Assignment: Epistolary fiction, which is the use of non-prose forms to tell a story. Journals, IM logs, old-fashioned letters or emails—forms of communication. I chose to go with my old standby of audio transcripts, revisiting Ryan and Doctor Harold Lay briefly. This is also, like the next and last of this quick series, a way to play with a Ryan I have never gotten a chance to write in nearly eight years of writing him; an unquestionably criminal, twisted Ryan whose core is still nine years old.

( AUDIO TRANSCRIPT : SESSION #2 )

Murderer | #7 of 7 (2594 words)

This was my second workshop piece, the first being an excerpt from my '09 NaNo. No instructions were given for workshops, so I played with writing Ryan in the throes of his psychologically-driven killing spree. He suffers from dissociative amnesia, forgetting his entire life before he arrived in an unnamed town in Rockland county, and calling himself Sol because it is the only name that sticks.

( The old woman upstairs called him Kevin, because she once knew an Asian youth named Kevin. )