Today's Writing Prompt: How I Spent My Summer

It's a beautiful summer day, and you are twelve years old.

How do you spend the day?

Today's Writing Prompt: Grandparents

Tell me about your grandparents.

FFF: Comedy

Welcome to the latest installment of Friday Flash Fiction. Enter your short work of fiction (under 1,000 words) based on this prompt by midnight Saturday to be eligible to win! The best entry will be published on the site, along with a short author bio; bringing you fame, fortune and bragging rights. Winners also receive a small prize. Entries may be posted in the comments or emailed to theoneminutewriter@gmail.com. If you post in the comments, please be sure to leave us a way to contact you in case you are our winner. Good Luck!

Today I would like you to write a Comedy.

Here are some ideas to jump start, but please don't feel limited to these!
~ Scatterbrained
~ Mismatched clothes
~ A dog with a pink spot
~ The boy with the pet rock
~ Mom's dinner gone bad
~ My cousin's karaoke

I can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Today's Writing Prompt: Knots

I have just learned this week that there are SO many kinds of knots! Who knew?! Write about a knot.

Today's Writing Prompt: Stereotypes

Write about something that you stereotype. Maybe you don't mean to, but we all do it in one way or another.

Today's Writing Prompt: Gem

Gem: a precious stone.

FFF Winner: Kelly Miller!

The winner of this week's FFF is Kelly Miller!

Kelly says about herself: I'm a single mom living in Houston and I love writing! It's the one thing that keeps me sane sometimes. I wrote a lot in high school but stopped until I got into writing Twilight fanfic. You can read more on her website at: http://m.fanfiction.net/u/3179278/justwanttologin.

Her story was so unexpectedly sweet, it absolutely swept me off my feet. I loved the first person POV and the way she really captured the struggles and interactions of kids that age. Way to go, Kelly!

Here's her entry:

When I was in first grade I moved from my big city school to a small town school half a country away. My mom had just died and I now lived with my dad.

I was scared and I felt so alone, before a couple of months ago I only saw my dad a few times a year and now we were trying to learn about each other at the same time I was a sad, grieving and confused little girl.

I had only been there for a few days but I was already not doing so well in the friend making department. The kids there had literally all known each other since there were in diapers. Even in first grade, it’s hard to break into a group like that.

On my 3rd day there I asked my teacher to use the bathroom and she said sure, go right on ahead. I stared at her for a minute waiting for her to come with me. At my old school you couldn’t just walk out of the room by yourself. She told me again to go ahead and go so I walked out.

A sense of direction is something I don’t have and so I just wandered around before I found the bathroom. Finally I walk in and when I see a boy peeing and I burst into tears.

Startled the boy hurries up and then asks me why I’m in here. I tell him through my hysterical sobbing that I’m lost and I really need to go to the bathroom.

“What’s your name?” He asks and I tell him Anna. He tells me his name is Nathan and then takes my hand and leads me to the girl’s restroom and tells me he will wait outside for me and walk me back to my classroom.

After that I would see him a couple of times a day and he even asked me to eat lunch with him. He told me he was in 4th grade and for a long time that confused me because in my old school you never saw other grades during the day and lunch was with your class. Nathan and I became friends, him being my only friend and his friends often making fun of him for not only hanging out with a girl but a girl in first grade. Nathan never cared.

As the school year came closer and closer I worried I wouldn’t see him anymore, still not really understanding the whole small town concept. In my old school you only saw your friends at school but Nathan assured me he would see me during the summer.

And he did… every day. He convinced his mom to convince my dad to let me stay at with her while he was working. It wasn’t hard; Nathan’s mom is a well trusted teacher so when she offered my dad jumped at the chance to know I was taken care of without having to put me in the local daycare.

Nathan’s mom, Kari, is still like a mother to me today. She taught me how to bake and cook and sew and all kinds of other things when Nathan and I weren’t running around town on our bikes or swimming at the lake or watching movies at the movie theatre. I wasn’t even allowed to go outside by myself in the city so this felt like pure freedom.

Nathan still hung out with his friends as they eventually figured out if it came to a choice it would always be me. I even became friends with a few of their little sisters and we would all do things as a big group.

I finally fit in.

When the school year came again I wasn’t the same scared, confused, sad and lost little girl as I was a year ago but Nathan still went out of his way to see me when he could and I started going to his house most afternoons.

This is how it went for years until I was about 13. Suddenly it felt weird to lay in bed with him and watch a movie. It felt weird for him to hold my hand when we jumped off the rocks at the lake. It felt weird to spend the night at his house when my dad picked up an extra shift.

I told one of my girlfriends about it and we decided I must be falling in love.

I was back to being scared, lost and confused without a mother to talk to about all this. If it had been another boy I would have talked to Kari.

Nathan started dating and I hated every single one of them even though they never lasted more than a couple of dates.

I started hanging out with him less and less and I think he was hurt and confused but I didn’t know what else to do. For two years we drifted apart.

Then it was time for his senior prom and he was refusing to go.

One day Kari told me to ask him why he wasn’t going so even though we barely spoke anymore I asked him.

He told me the only girl he wanted to go with barely spoke to him.

“Ask her anyway, the worst she can say is no right?”

“Anna, will you go to my prom with me?” He asked me and after the shock I said of course and he kissed me.

Prom was 6 years ago and as I watch him snuggle our newborn daughter I can’t help but be thankful for walking into the boy’s bathroom all those years ago.  

Today's Writing Prompt: Obey

If you really had to define this in terms of action what would you say?

Today's Writing Prompt: Mom, Mother, Mama

What's yours like?

Today's Writing Prompt: weather

The weather is weird all over the country right now. What's it like in your neighborhood?

FFF: The Mistake

Welcome to the latest installment of Friday Flash Fiction. Enter your short work of fiction (under 1,000 words) based on this prompt by midnight Saturday to be eligible to win! The best entry will be published on the site, along with a short author bio; bringing you fame, fortune and bragging rights. Winners also receive a small prize. Entries may be posted in the comments or emailed to theoneminutewriter@gmail.com. If you post in the comments, please be sure to leave us a way to contact you in case you are our winner. Good Luck!

Write a story about a child who makes a simple mistake -  and that mistake ends up shaping everything about his or her entire life.

Today's Writing Prompt: Quiet Love

What are some ways you can you tell someone you love them without saying it?

Today's Writing Prompt: Screen-Free

Every year around this time, my children's school does a fun pledge where kids go a week with no "screen time" - no TV, no computers, no texting or games on mom's cell phone.

If you lived for a week 'Screen-Free,' what would you do with all that extra time?

Today's Writing Prompt: Athletics

If you could compete in the Olympics in any event, which would yours be?

FFF Winner: June Calendar

Congratulations, June, on your winning FFF submission! We had some good entries via email this week! Thank you to all who participated! I love all the creativity!!

June's Story:

Today is the day I have been waiting for! I have dreamed of it as long as I've been able to understand what it would mean. This morning Grandfather died. He was a dear old man who loved me very much -- not as much as he loved mother but after mother and father's little Cesna went down in the Sierra Nevada, I have been the object of his affection. Do I sound happy Grandfather is dead? No. I am not happy. I am hear broken. He was sweet to me, when I was small he read books to me and later took me on long hikes in the mountains. Of course he paid for my schooling and everything I needed -- or didn't really need, like the Audi he gave me for my 16th birthday. Yes, I loved him.
But I always knew that when he died, I would inherit everything. What would I do with it? I used to dream about that--a trip around the world. An expedition to climb Everest, setting up a clinic in Nairobi to cure malaria. Oh, I dreamed selfish and I dreamed philanthropic. Oh, how I dreamed! All the world would be mine. Girls -- then whenI grew older, I realize it would be women -- would flock to me. Whether I flaunted my wealth or was modest and did good works, I would have my choice of women. So I truly loved grandfather but I often dreamed he had died.
He has died! I was with him last night at the hospice when he breathed his last. But before that he opened his weary eyes, he hadn't spoke for a week but his eyes were ar clear as ever. They looked at me, deep into me, He reached out and grabbed my knee witha skeletal right hand and clasp it like a hawk grasps a sparrow.
"It's all yours. It's all maya, money is only an idea. Only life is real. Do you understand?"
"No," i said. "No, I don't know what is real."