Photos, Flash Fiction or Six-Word Stories can create exciting writing experiences!

Happiness is a matter of perspective.

I'm always writing or thinking about writing. When I took these photos, I didn't know what I had in mind. One is a photo of the new and improved Coney Island in New York City. The other is  a photo of a late night NYC subway train that takes an hour to reach its final destination. Both experiences created a sense of happiness last time I visited. I decided to write a six-word story (listed above) based on the two photos so as to get started because thinking too long and hard leaves the mind in a muddle.

Writing a story begins with a thought. In a split second, you know what a story is about. The challenge is writing in some logical order. One way to approach writing is to start with what you know & keep it simple. You might find the following thoughts useful:

• Keep it simple. That's where flash fiction or six-word stories can be helpful.

• Visit http://www.sixwordstories.net.

• In six words, create a story of your own linking the two photos (above).

• Try writing an original six-word story of your own using your imagination or your own photos.

• Think positive, relax, and experiment. If you don't like your writing, junk it.  If you really like what you wrote, post it. The idea is to get writing, even when you think you don't have much to say.

When making a change, it's important to realize bad habits are like addictions--

It takes hard work and consistency to break old habits and learn something new. This is difficult to manage because most of us like to keep things simple, easy and painlessly delicious. But as they always say, "No pain, no gain."

In the process of changing, go easy on yourself and don't keep company with things you can't resist. When the going gets tough, remind yourself to follow 

a few rules:

• Anything worth achieving takes commitment, practice and patience, so start with a change in attitude.

• It takes an average of 66 days to learn something new, so keep this in mind when trying to make improvements. 

• Changing habits means changing the routine. This includes finding new places to hang out and new people to hang out with.  Changing old habits is mostly about breaking the routine that leads to bad practices and choices.

• Keep balanced. Don't try too hard or not hard enough and you avoid the "see-saw" effect of mood swings, self-resentment, insecurity about the progress being made and ultimately self-sabotage, which ruins everything.

•  If you find yourself thinking negative thoughts, get up and do something about it.  Don't just sit there and by all means, do not reach for "quick-fix" solutions because they numb the control centers in your brain, making it easy to give up.

• Find someone to call when you feel tempted because if you're trying to change habits, one temptation can lead to destruction of an entire plan of action no matter how long you followed the regimen.

When making a change, it's important to realize bad habits are like addictions--making the same choices knowing they are detrimental to your health. Acquiring new habits requires the same discipline, course of action and network of support for when the going gets rough.

Chapter 1: "He was a moon child born of radiance, ephemeral, and beautiful."

He was a moon child born of radiance, ephemeral,and beautiful. The moon was bold and bodacious, hurling silver beams across the sky the night he was born and then sifting into his mother's hospital bed to kiss the newborn's cheek. But something quiet and subtle had happened, and unbeknown to his mother, drenched in sweat and exhausted after 16 hours of labor, he wasn't allowed to breathe.

Escaping the birth canal, he was given no incentive to cry. No slap on the ass like other babies get and no encouragement to scream out a name, so not hearing its voice, the confused mother didn't bond with the tiny thing, and she couldn't decide on a name, so she asked the nurse, "Could you name him for me?" But there was another problem: doctors couldn't determine if it was a precious baby girl or a bouncing baby boy. So the nurse named him Vulcanne when she spied the pointy ears.

He grew up between skyscrapers and a crooked street off the beaten path. Locating it must have been a challenge because no one visited and no strangers ever appeared at the door. Sometimes he played on a pallet on the back screened-in porch adjacent to the kitchen where his mother stood preparing bottles of milk or cooking something good. 

In the wooded backyard, there were rabbits, squirrels, and sometimes a snake, but he never flinched or cried. They seemed to see he was watching, but they kept foraging for food. If a dog was heard barking in the distance, the animals would run, birds would fly away, and Vulcanne would escape into the kitchen, grab his mother by the hand or bury his face in her skirt.

In the afternoons after a nap, sometimes, he talked to his mother about boots, two pairs of crooked, muddy boots left out on the front porch to dry. He hated seeing the crumbling chips of dirt and mud lying next to the exhausted footwear--laid to the side, the tongues hanging, shoe laces stretched out to dry, like tentacles. He hated the black streaks left when they were taken away and thrown to the floor of his father's lazy pick-up truck, grumbling and moaning, coughing and sputtering until finally catching its breath and crawling uphill. Each day, Vulcanne watched at the window until the truck pulled out of sight, just before sunrise, then he crawled into bed and pretended to sleep so when his mother peeked into the room she would kiss him on his cheek

Vulcanne loved to laugh as well as cry, but his favorite summer past-time was listening to sounds of birds chirping while sitting side by side with his father on the back door steps. Mostly, he played on his own, only venturing into the kitchen when he wanted a hug, but at the same time each day, he stopped his play to stand at the window and wait for his father's gray truck to appear.

Then one day as maple leaves had started to fall, his father forgot to return. Vulcanne looked at his mother as if to ask questions, but nothing was ever said. By summertime, instead of running to safety when he heard a scary sound, Vulcanne had learned to wait at the kitchen door until his mother called his name. For a while, he felt safe but one day he was left on his own until his mother returned with an armful of groceries, and while she was away, something happened.
-M.D.Johnson 
(Work in progress. Leave a comment. Thank you.)

Thank you! Happy New Year! Be fearless, be sexy, and express who you are, but remember, a cup of Honesty tastes better with an ounce of Respect.

Thank you for following, visiting and reading this blog, survivingaday.blogspot.com. Thanks also, for your comments. I started this blog hoping to create a safe space for people to express their feelings and opinions. Many have read this blog. Some of you have also responded, but in the coming year, I'd like to hear more about you, how you're feeling, and what you'd like to share.

At www.survivingaday.blogspot.com, your information is as private as it gets on blogger.com and your information will not be marketed. This is a personal blog about surviving--a frustrating day, climate change, challenges of parenting, losing a friend or loved one, or whatever challenges you face day to day. This is what I would like you to share with people who read this blog. 

I'll be making a few changes in 2016. I'll be asking for comments on certain topics as well as posting your comments, stories or poems. What I post will be published anonymously or by what name you request. Due to copyright laws, I will post only original works and images with your permission.  I will also be sharing original creative works of my own from time to time. 

 

I invite you to submit your work, make announcements about upcoming events, and offer comments that are honest, but not denigrating. I believe in being politically correct, but only up to a point. As poet Emily Dickinson says, "Tell all the truth but tell it slant." It's not what we say but how it is said.  A cup of Honesty tastes better with an ounce of Respect. I reserve the right to not publish plagiarized, inappropriate or inflammatory material. At this blog site, www.survivingaday.blogspot.com, positive thinking is encouraged but not required because life is ebb and flow, ups and downs, and constant change.

Please keep the following in mind:

Unless otherwise noted, all blog posts, quotations, artwork or images are authored by M.DH.Johnson. Any images, stories, poems, or information published via this blog site,  www.survivingaday.blogspot.com is copyright protected. All rights reserved.  No part of this blog may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, restorations or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s). 

I look forward to 2016. All the best to you and yours in the new year!

Day at Myrtle beach (c) 2014
Visit: Twitter @survivingaday