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Saving the world...

So, there's this nifty little community called NYC Midnight. For the last few years, they've sponsored a Flash Fiction Challenge. I missed the deadline to register last year by a day, so I was more than determined to get promptly registered this year---- well, I almost missed it again. In fact, I think I slid in with only a couple of hours to spare.

But, in the realm of deadline challenge writing, hours equate centuries of time.

I registered, and waited. Not until the exact stroke of midnight on the start of the challenge weekend do we know what we will be writing. Everybody starts on a "blind", as it were, even-playing field. When the hammer falls and the emails are sent, a countdown clock begins--- it's quite ominous actually, one feels the pressure of saving the world as the clock ticks down the seconds.

48 hours. That's it.

Think you can save the world in 2 days?

Oh, but wait... Just like any other dramatic hostage, 'fate-of-the-world-in-your-hands' scenarios, there are demands. You must write this, you must include this, you must say this.... and you must do it all without saying too much....oy.

At midnight, on the day the challenge begins, every registered writer is provided a genre, a location and an object--- all of which must be included/adhered to in the 1000-word max. story that the writer submits.

Restricting criteria like this, often gives most writers pause. Not me, though! I love having parameters defined, I panic in open-ended situations and am more likely to cut the wrong wire when disarming a bomb if things aren't clearly defined.

At least, I thought I'd do well... but when I'm given a genre I don't write in, a location I don't frequent and an object that's about as exciting as dead grass, I stammer and want to give my superhero cape to someone else.

But, I couldn't let the world down *I would definitely feel like a superhero failure*. So, I took my genre-- Romantic Comedy *shudder*... I took my location-- a hair salon *?*.... I took my object-- a box of tissues *what the heck*... and mashed it all together in some form of a 967-word story in 45 hrs. Phew.

3 hours to spare in the world-saving business is a lifetime...

Let's just hope it's enough of a ransom....


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