Schedule? What schedule?

I blame the heat. Or hayfever. Or insomnia caused by both of the above. Anyway it's Tuesday and I'm late with this blog post. Think of it as letting the anticipation build, if you like.

Excitement abounds for National Writing Day tomorrow, for which Ilkley Writers are reading new stories about summer and light (it being the longest day) then hosting our first prose open mic.

I was quite pleased with the flyer I designed

This being us, several of us have eschewed the sunshine and ice cream vision of summer and gone darker. My story, Summer of 96, begins I wore a babydoll dress that night because it was summer, and you know pretty soon it's not going to end well for someone.

The title of my summer story is of course a nod to the Bryan Adams song Summer of 69, while also referring to the summer I was 17, the age my narrator is, and I wanted the characters not to have mobile phones, and to have to re-tune Radio 1 periodically on a long journey so it all kind of fit. Often, I have great trouble with titles (see title of blog post for further evidence) and seeing the range of titles on the Bath Flash Fiction longlist this morning I realised (again) that this is an area I need to work on.

However, poor title or not, I have (3rd year running!) got a story in the FlashFlood on Saturday for National Flash Fiction Day. You should be able to read mine at about 1.40pm (BST), it's called She gets it from your side. This one was written as a response to the oft-recited Ernest Hemingway 6-word story about the unworn baby shoes, and is either fantasy or magic realism depending on your views on these things.