Today is publication day over at Nature! My flash story What You Do for a Friend is now up in their “Futures” series, and free to read online. If you subscribe, it comes in a truly fancy PDF publication with the most awesome illustration gracing the top of the story!
At the bottom of the story’s concluding page, there’s a spot explaining the inspiration behind the story, which covers what I’d normally do here on the olde blogge on publication day. So, what to do, what to do? Well, I can expand a wee bit on that inspiration, and give you more!
Like this: What You Do for a Friend was also written during a Codex flash fiction writing contest. We’re given prompts, and 52 hours to write a story of 750 words or less. I picked two of the 6 prompts given, and got to writing. The published story was my third attempt at “finding” the story I wanted to write, before I truly began. The first two ideas fizzled out completely, (sometimes I’ve gotten “extra stories” from these contests, but not this time) but I latched onto this one and immediately loved the vibe, and the ideas I could explore with it. I’m pretty sure this is the first time that one of my story’s first drafts and its final version looked so similar!
Oh, a final bit of fun: one of the prompts I used was to utilize x number of words from a list of unrelated words. Not all those words made it into the final story, but Seeker’s name certainly did!
Everyday Magic | M. E. Garber 
Wow, what a great story! I’ve re-read it a few times now, and I keep discovering nuances. It’s such an enjoyable read. Congratulations on the publication!
Wow, thanks, Mike! I’m so glad you enjoyed the story.