So there I was at the self service check-out yesterday purchasing my body weight in Diet Coke and waiting for the receipt. I refuse to walk out of the store without it for fear that the long arm of the law will collar me, accuse me of theft and I’ll be hauled off to the nearest police cell quicker than you can shout ‘But honestly officer. The receipt is sitting on the counter if you’ll only just let me……AAAARGHHHH……… those handcuffs really chafe!’
As the check-out spewed forth said proof of purchase I noticed that not all of my fellow customers were as paranoid as yours truly. There were half a dozen discarded receipts lying in front of me. It struck me. I wonder who made these varied purchases and then wandered out of the store back to the trials and tribulations of their everyday lives? What kind of days were they having? What kind of lives?
I am an avid people watcher. It must go hand in hand with commuting to and from work every day. When I was on Twitter, back in the day, I ran a daily series called ‘Train Tweets’ where I created imaginary lives for the regulars who shared the 7:13 express to Belfast with me. I was the original geek on a train until Hollywood turned me into Emily Blunt. Serial killers, angry solicitors and Arsene Wenger lookalikes. We had it all on the 7:13.
Earlier this week I was educated as to what ‘flash fiction’ is. A light bulb popped on in my head as I realised I write a lot about writing fiction on the blog but don’t actually write a lot of fiction on the blog. Did that last sentence make sense? I sincerely hope so. For otherwise you might struggle with the rest of this post. Which would be a terrible shame for everyone concerned. Most of all me. But also for all you lot.
Because….
I have a challenge for you all. Should you choose to accept it, in true Mission Impossible style. Below are two of the receipts that I ‘borrowed’ from the Tesco empire. All you have do is write a piece of prose describing a day in the life of the person who made the purchase. Oh….and post it on WordPress. If this takes off then I will run it on the blog as an occasional feature. If not, then I will probably sulk for a day or two but then forgive you all and we can awkwardly agree that this was a terrible idea that should never have seen the light of day in the first place.
Over to you now. Gauntlet thrown. If you choose to accept the challenge then feel free to name check fracturedfaithblog on your accompanying post. If not, then at least leave a comment and say hello. We can talk about the weather. Or maybe the extortionate £2:50 that Tesco charge for a coffee. And what’s a San Pellegino anyway? I had to Google it. Sparkling mineral water apparently. Hmmmmm. Somebody must have had a sore head.
I was just telling a friend today about your people watching skills and imaginative past time of creating stories. This is certainly an exciting challenge. I may look into this further. 🙂
Also BREAKTHROUGH! I finally wrote through the piece I was struggling with and definitely have a lot of ambition now to keep getting through. Thanks for your encouragement!
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Hurray! That’s great news. I’m honoured that you would tell a friend about my writing. Thank you and keep writing 👍🏻
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Thank you!!!
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Mission accepted. I’m still learning about using WordPress. How do I link my reply to fracturedfaithblog? This is such a great idea – excited!
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Thank you. You’re the first. Oh I’m not sure. Ha Ha. It’s fine really. Just write your post and I’ll keep an eye out for it. Really looking forward to reading it 🙂
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Cheers! Wanted to reply quickly in case (in true Mission Impossible style) the message self destructed. Haha.
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Yes. Three second then Pffftttttt 🔥
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Hi! Mission Complete. I have posted my flash fiction piece on meupgraded.wordpress.com
Never written anything like that before and really enjoyed the experience. See what you think?
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I do this with my class!! It’s so much fun!! 😄
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Yes it’s my P5 mentality shining through again 🙂
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Just conjuring up how loose those bananas truly are… 😜
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Sounds like the start of a story Deborah 😊
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I’m just going to write my ideas on here, the Muller rice and banana girl was on her way to the gym when she decided to pick up breakfast and a banana for after her workout.
Coffee and mineral water guy works in an office and takes both drinks in with him while chatting to his colleagues about the evening he had last night in a beer garden with friends.
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Ooooh nice words. You’re a budding novelist. I knew it all along. I’m sure you would have been the gym girl. Thanks so much for taking part 🙂
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I love making up stories about people, I’m a nightmare in a beer garden 😄 or in a restaurant, im like awh look they’re on a first date, bless, it’s still at the awkward stage, where do you think they met? 😄 no problem, it was fun.
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I’m much the sane. But normally on the train as I never get to beer gardens or restaurants these days 😂
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I LOVE this idea! To be anal, though, what’s your flash word limit? 🙂
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Ha! I had to google that. The word limit for flash fiction is 1000 so I’m happy with that if you are?
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1 million? Okay!
(I’ve seen flashes for 50 to 250, so I wondered.)
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You can choose whatever word limit you want. Just see where it takes you. A one million word blog might be a tad excessive.
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Alrighty!
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Mission Complete! I’ve tagged your URL into my blog with the piece of flash fiction I’ve written. You can find it on my blog – latest post. See what you think?
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Yes I will read it now. Thank you so much for taking part 🙂
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Challenge accepted. Posted just now. 🙂
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Good man David. I will read and reblog. Thank you for taking part 👍🏻
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I love this idea, and I’m definitely going to do it! It might be up in a few weeks due to when I’m posting, but I’ll make sure to link back to this post!
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Thank you. That would be great. Looking forward to reading it and of course will reblog 😊
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Thank you!🙂
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Keep in touch.
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LOL – Hearing about your “Train Tweets” brought to mind a funny video “Narrating People’s Lives” which I found and posted to my main blog almost four years ago (with further remarks about the writing process), and entitled “You Couldn’t Make It Up” (https://wp.me/p30cCH-1kO).
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I’ll read that later today. Thank you Christine 🙂
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Incidentally, I’m no good at writing short fiction, “flash” or otherwise. I’ve produced only one short story in my life, “The Daughters of Zeus,” which is about how I came to write my first novel. I serialized the story into six consecutive posts on my main blog a couple of years ago. The link to the first part is https://wp.me/p30cCH-1Zj and if you scroll back up to the top after reading, you can link directly to the next part of the story.
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Yes I’ll be sure to do that. And I’m sure that’s not true.
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Done! Thanks for the inspo. I haven’t written a blog post in about six weeks! Hope I have linked back to you okay. Great post 🙂 I’m intrigued by other people’s bank receipts. A high school art teacher of mine once brought in a bank receipt that was left in the machine and the person had $116, 000 in the bank. He was gobsmacked someone would have that much money just, you know, lying around in their bank account. At the time I thought he was so weird but I’ve never forgotten it. He’s now my spirit animal.
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That’s an amazing tale and I’m really pleased that my challenge got your creative juices flowing again. Thank you for taking part. I’ll be sure to read your post and will reblog it later in the day 🙂
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My roommate has been bugging me for months to try writing something other than bible study testimonial stuff because he felt I would be good at it. I have been blowing him off and not finding the inspiration but I’m happy to report that your challenge became the inspiration I needed. I also now have an incredible desire to visit Ireland, I feel like I’ve just been there!
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It’s great that the post has inspired you to write and I’m looking forward to seeing what you have come up with. Ireland looks forward to welcoming you 🙂
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I linked to this page from mine but not sure it did an official ping back. I may also have missed the concept of flash challenge if brevity is a consideration 🙂
https://journeyofredemption.com/2018/07/22/the-best-divine-appointment-ever/
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Thank you. I will read it later today.
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It’s not in my normal style, but I took a crack at it over at http://missionarysojourn.com It is probably too late to qualify as flash too. Just sayin’.
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Thanks for taking part Jon. Looking forward to reading it 😆
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Challenge accepted! Will post this week. I had never heard of flash fiction either, by the way. Also, I love San Pellegrino!
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That’s great. I’m really looking forward to reading it. This should be easy for you then 😊
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https://wordpress.com/post/mywayhomelife.wordpress.com/1402
Here’s the web address of my post. Just got it done today. Enjoyed writing fiction again, such as it is–it’s been so long! I’ve gotten too used to magazine pieces.
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Going to read it now. Exciting 😊
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Thoughts? Always looking for honest critiques…
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Oh. I’ve read it and thought I had left a comment. Did you not get it?
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No, sorry to bother you, but I don’t see it for some reason. No worries, though.
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It was so good I’ve reblogged it. Hope you have a great Sunday 🙂
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Aw, thanks! Have a great day as well. Shae and I just finished yoga and it’s a cool, rainy morning here in the Midwest. Headed to church soon.
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It’s cool and rainy in Northern Ireland as well. We went to a birthday party. Fionnuala’s little nephew, Cadan, who turned six.
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Accepted the Challenge and is ready now @ https://exploretheexperiences.wordpress.com/2018/07/23/receipt-challenge/ 🙂
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That’s great. Looking forward to reading it 🙂
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I’ll give it a crack. It should be out tomorrow. If you are able to receive pingbacks, you will get a notification.
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Oh this is beautiful. What a wonderful tale of a slightly frazzled new mother’s love for her child. Touching yet grounded in the reality of sleepless nights and tired bones. Thank you so much for taking part 🙂🙏🏻
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I wouldn’t have understood the whole story if I hadn’t clicked on Jon’s link to you at:
missionarysojourn.com
now I get it! Excellent idea…fun too. I’ll try to play along but I have limited WordPress pinging skills and I’m currently being taught via email by another kind blogger Amy Blount at: A New Life and already I’m behind on my Random Acts of Kindness post…but I wanted to say Hello anyway!
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Hello to you as well 😊
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May I still try this one for practice? 🙂
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Of course you can. Looking forward to reading it 😊
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Ok! Going to,slee,right now, but I’ll work on it this week! Thanks. What a creative idea to use the receipt items to create a story. Genius of you to think of it! Take care. Will write soon! 💕
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Thank you and happy writing ✍🏻
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So…… I have an awkward update. I tried it. And, I found out I’m not very good at flash fiction. I shared with my writing group that meets on Sunday and it was redlined to the nth degree. So, embarrassingly, I’m gonna pass on this one. Maybe I’ll keep trying later. Lolz! Have a groovy day and I will still read your guys’ and your readers’ amazing flash fiction stories! 💕🌸
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I’m sorry it didn’t go down well. Their loss 🙂
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I know it won’t get reposted or anything, but it’s a new challenge to try!
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