Category Archives: Kris Norris

Apr3

Flash Fiction Mondays

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******************************************************************

 Walking into Nick’s apartment I let out a little scream. “What the hell is that?”

“What? My painting?” he asked. “It’s my term project.”

“That’s your self portrait for Turner’s class?

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”

Nick sounded hurt, or maybe offended that I didn’t seem to love his work.

“It’s, just, a little disturbing. Especially, considering that its supposed to be a SELF portrait. Also, its a little…well…clockwork-y.”

“That’s the point, Darla.”

“I know what it makes me think of! Oh my gosh, that’s why it’s so disturbing. You’ve been watching too much Doctor Who again!”

Nick let out an offended huff. “Okay, first of all, there is no such thing as too much Doctor Who.”

“True, my apologies,” I said.

“Second, don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked a little too innocent though. Like he was trying to pretend he didn’t know every episode of the show by heart.

“It reminds me of those creepy-ass clockwork people from that stupid episode with fireplace.”

“How dare you insult The Girl in the Fireplace!”

“Ha! I knew it! That WAS your inspiration. Some self portrait.” I turned back to look at the picture again, the gears on the face, the gold paint, the various pipes and pieces of metal. “I don’t get what its supposed to say about you, though.”

Nick looked at the picture with me for a minute, pondering. “I guess its supposed to say, ‘I’m more than just a man, I’m not merely human.'” He seemed very pleased with himself at that deduction.

“Hmmmm, all I get is creepy-ass clockwork. But I’m sure Turner will love it. A+ my friend. A+.”

| Bronwyn Green | Jess Jarman | Kris Norris | Deelylah Mullin |

Feb6

Flash Fiction Mondays

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The cape only added to the heat, the heavy velvet trapped the humidity and made it even harder to breathe. But is was part of the mystery, no one was allowed to wear “normal” clothing or bring any sort of technology to the gatherings. 

I made my way down the colonnade, hurrying so I wouldn’t miss the beginning and be locked out. I didn’t see anyone else but that didn’t necessarily mean I was the last to arrive. There were so many ways to approach the gathering place that it was almost as if the others appeared as if from nowhere.

As I got closer, I could hear voices, low and musical. Just talking at this point, so I wasn’t late. I slipped through the door and joined the first group I saw. 

“Are we starting, soon?” I asked.

“Soon,” one of the others said. “We’re just waiting for the signal.”

Just a couple of minutes later, the signal came. The lights went out and silence fell immediately. There was shuffling as everyone got into position, at this point we all knew our places and didn’t need illumination to know where to go.

The silence endured as we waited for it to begin, our whole reason for being here.

Suddenly, the quiet was broken by a loud, single beat. Then another. On the third beat, the movements began. Synchronized and swirling, we moved, forgetting about the oppressive heat. It went on for minutes, the choreographed chaos.

The music stopped and we all froze.

“Alright, everyone,” came the voice from the balacony. “That was better. But this flash mob is happening in just a couple of weeks. We need to be on point. Again!”
____________________________________________________________________________________

Jess Jarman | Deelylah Mullin | Bronwyn Green | Kris Norris

Aug24

Wednesday Randomness – Behind the scenes of my current project

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This week’s random Wednesday topic is a peek behind the scenes of my current project. I haven’t been super productive lately, or productive at all, but I’m going to give you a sneak peek of the project I WANT to be working on.

This story came about from a photo flash fiction prompt last year. If you’re interested and want to read the story that started it all, click here. I think this is going to end up being the prologue, or maybe some sort of flashback. I definitely want it in the story somewhere.

The main location of the story is a bed and breakfast in New England, I see a house in my mind kind of like this:

B&B1

 

I also have a pictures in my head for a few key characters. The main character is Abigail, a widow who moves out East to start over. For her, I picture someone very girl-next-door, wholesome, sweet.

Abigail

 

For her deceased husband (who I realize isn’t actually in the book but still plays a large part), I didn’t have a specific person in mind. Not someone famous anyway, but a certain look for sure. This character is based on someone I knew in high school, but we’ll need to add some curly hair.

Mark

For the dashing doctor, Kyle, non other than the beautiful Chris Pine. Let’s all just take a minute to appreciate those eyes.

Kyle

And finally, for Abigail’s new friend Maya, who brings a wonderful group of people into Abby’s life:

Maya

This is basically just the most beautiful town ever, obviously.

I’m not sure what else I can say about the story at this point. I guess it would be categorized as a contemporary romance, my first foray into that area. Up until now I’ve focused mainly on YA. I’m probably a third of way through the first draft and I’d really like to finish it by the end of the year. That’s my goal.

See what the other bloggers are working on, and say hello to our newest blogger, Torrance!

Bronwyn
Jess
Gwen
Jessica
Kris
Paige
Torrance

Jul20

Wordless Wednesday – Anger/Rage

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Mrs. White 5

Mrs. White 3

Mrs. White 4

 

Check out the other bloggers to experience their rage:

Bronwyn
Kris
Jess
Paige
Gwen

 

Jun20

Flash Fiction Mondays

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songprompt1

This week’s flash fiction is inspired by “Little Heaven” by Toad the Wet Sprocket. If you’re interested, you can read the lyrics or give it a listen.

******

“So, this is it, huh?”

“Seems like it.”

Daniel reached over and took my hand as we watched the scene unfold below us. People were running every direction, panic clear in the way they rushed about with seemingly no purpose other than to get as far away as possible. We could hear crying and screams, although from this distance no actual words made it through.

“Is this really the right way, Daniel? Are we supposed to just watch this happen?”

We both looked at the sky as the clouds visibly gathered and darkened, almost as though we were watching a time lapse film of a storm moving.

“You know the rules, Hannah. We are simply here to observe. That has always been our job. We do not interfere. We watch.”

He was right, I knew the rules. We’d been following them for long enough, but this was, I don’t know if heartbreaking was the right word. Senseless, maybe. Pointless. And still, we watched.

As one we turned to the east at the sound of an explosion. Daniel watched dispassionately as a large warehouse exploded, for no reason I could see, sending large pieces of flaming roof pouring down over the people trying to flee.

We could so easily help, get people to safety. Even stop the gathering storms if we were so inclined. But those weren’t the rules. With a crack of thunder the clouds burst open and a torrential rain fell, flooding streets. We saw people and cars washed away like so much debris and still, we did nothing.

Abruptly I realized Daniel was no longer by my side, but standing in front of me, blocking my way. “I can feel your indecision, Hannah. And if I can, so can the others. Do you want Raphael to come down here? Or Michael? It will be so much worse for these people if our brothers decide to become personally involved.”

He was right, Daniel was always right.

“Why create something like this only to destroy it?” I asked. The age old question, one we’ve asked time and again. Looking into the distance, far beyond what the people below could see, there was more smoke, more rain, more destruction. It was a never ending hellscape.

“It’s time to leave. We’ve seen all we need to,” Daniel said, gesturing toward the scene behind him. “Nothing is going to stop this now, that’s all we had to see to.”

I wanted to cry for these people, cry and scream about the unfairness of what happening to them. But I couldn’t, crying was impossible for me. And screaming would no good, in fact it would only make things worse. The kindest thing to do for them was to leave them on their own.

As one, we turned, our wings effortlessly lifting us into the sky. It was time to leave. Daniel was right, there was nothing more to watch. The apocalypse had come, those that were meant to survive would. And so would we. After all, angels were forever.

Check out the links to below to see what the other bloggers came up with:

Brownyn

Kris

Jess

Jun8

Promptly Penned

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Promplty Penned

Today’s post is a Promptly Penned topic. We all have same two lines to inspire us and/or to include somewhere in our post.

Person A: “How long have you been standing there?”

Person B: “Longer than you’d like.”

*********

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Longer than you’d like. Long enough to see you bust out some serious 80’s dance moves. What was that?”

I could feel the blush starting in my neck and creeping up my face. What was it about this girl? Every time I saw her, I managed to make a fool of myself. It was like some force in the universe was playing a joke on me.

“Aw, come on Amy,” she said, laughing. “Don’t be embarrassed. It was cute. In a dorky, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, kind of way.”

“What do you want, Mellie?” I tried to sound as impatient as possible. I wanted to make her think I hadn’t been dying for her to stop by all day. That I hadn’t been thinking of every reason possible to stay in my dorm room, so she’d be able to find me. I went back to folding my laundry, like she was interrupting my incredibly important task.

Mellie flopped down on the end of my bed, disturbing my carefully stacked pile of clothes. I shot her an annoyed look but she just smiled at me. She knew she was cute.

“So,” she finally said. “Are you going to ask me out at some point, or do I have to keep making a nuisance of myself?”

The look on my face must have been priceless, and Mellie thoroughly enjoyed it based on the huge grin she couldn’t hide.

“Well, um, yeah, so…”

She motioned for me to continue when my voice drifted off.

Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Do you want to maybe go to dinner? With me?”

“Oh my god, Amy!” Mellie threw her arms around me neck and pulled me close. “I thought you’d never ask.” Smiling she leaned in and kissed me.

 

Check out where this prompt took the other bloggers:

Bronwyn
Jessica
Kris
Paige

Mar9

Promptly Penned

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Promplty Penned

 

Here’s this month’s prompt:

Person A: “I thought I’d made it clear we have a no abduction policy.”

Person B: “She wasn’t cooperating. What did you expect me to do?”

***

From the backseat, Caroline could hear the two men arguing.

“I thought I’d made it clear we have a no abduction policy.” That was the guy behind the wheel.

“She wasn’t cooperating. What did you expect me to do?” This was the shorter of the two men, the one who had stuffed her in the backseat of the car.

“She shouldn’t have even known we were there. It was supposed to be an in and out, grab the money and leave.”

“Well, she must have heard us or something. She came up out of the basement and, uh…” Here the guy in the passenger seat trailed off, sounding kind of sheepish.

“Uh, what?” The driver said, sounding irritated.

“She saw my face, alright? I told her to get in the freezer after that and I was going to lock in her but she wouldn’t listen and since I figured she could probably describe me, I thought I should bring her with.”

The car suddenly lurched to the right in a squeal of tires. “How. How.” The driver took a couple of deep breaths. “How in the name of all that is holy did she see your face? You’re wearing a mask!”

 “I took it off.” It came out barely more than a whisper.

“I’m sorry. You what?”

“I took if off. It was itchy.” This time the passenger’s voice had a definite whine to it. “I told you I didn’t want to wear it in the first place. I don’t like masks.”

“You flaming idiot! The whole point of the mask is so people won’t see our faces. And then you go and take it off.”

“That’s why I brought her with. So she can’t tell nobody what we look like.”

At this point, Caroline had to stifle a giggle in the backseat. These had to be the two worst burglars in the world. Not just inept, but totally stupid. She continued to work at the apron that had been tied around her hands, figuring that if she could get free she had a good chance getting away from these idiots.

The car was still pulled over to the curb so Caroline decided to take a chance. “Hey, fellas?”

Both guys jumped and turned around to stare at her, now sitting up in the backseat with her hands in her lap.

“Hello.” She gave a little half wave and smiled.

“What the hell are you doing up?” The driver turned to the other guy. “Couldn’t you at least tie her up properly?”

“I thought I did!” He flinched as the driver smacked him in the back of the head.

“Boys. Boys!” Caroline smiled again as they turned to look back at her. “Did you maybe forget something?” She held up the bag of money they had taken from the coffee shop and waived it like a cape in front of a bull.

The two men looked at each other in horror. They started scrambling over each other to try climb into the backseat. As they fought to fit through the tiny space, Caroline opened the unlocked (how dumb were they?) back door and slipped out of the car. She wouldn’t have much time, but she thought she could make this work.

Caroline took off running as fast as she could down the dark side street toward the park that was nearby. If she could get enough of a head start she could lose them in the woods on the other side. She wasn’t the captain of her track team for nothing and those guys weren’t going to win any Olympic medals. She could hear them huffing and puffing behind her but their footsteps were falling farther and farther away.

Caroline made it to the trees and slowed to look behind her. The burglars were doubled over in the middle of the street trying to catch their breath, she was afraid one of them might have a heart attack. As they were still trying to recover, Caroline turned and kept making her way through the woods, slower now so she wouldn’t fall in the dark.

Eventually, Caroline made it home without any more issues. She had managed to lose the guys entirely, she figured they had given up on her. Once safely in her room, she looked in the bag and saw the men had taken about half of what was in the register at the end of the night, about a thousand dollars. All of that for a thousand dollars.

Sitting on her bed, she considered. She could return it to her boss in the morning. She could do that. Or, she could pretend as though they had broken in after she had left for the evening and consider this a bonus. After all, her boss was a tool. Always staring at her chest, making her close by herself, it wasn’t a great job. Her boss probably wouldn’t even report it, he didn’t report most of his income so why report a robbery? Yeah, this was going to be nice little bonus.

If she ever saw that burglar again, she just might have to say thank you.

Check out where this prompt took the other bloggers:

Bronwyn

Kris

Paige

Gwen

Mar7

Flash Fiction Mondays

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photoprompt

Handprint

“Keep running!” Gabe said, pushing at my back. “Don’t stop!”

I didn’t take my eyes off the scenery in front of me, not wanting to lose my footing and fall. Running through the woods in the dark was dangerous, I had to trust that Gabe was sticking close and we wouldn’t get separated. At this point, we weren’t even trying to be quiet, crashing through the underbrush and snapping twigs as we went. If someone was following us, we certainly couldn’t hear them.

After a few minutes of running almost flat out, I felt a hand wrap around my wrist and had to stifle a scream. We weren’t trying to be quiet, but I didn’t need to make extra noise. Gabe pulled me up beside him and whispered in my ear.

“I think we need to go this way,” he tugged on my arm to indicate the direction he meant. “The cabin should be over here, not far. We can hide there until morning.”

“Won’t they know to look for us there?”

“No, it’s abandoned. Unless you know about the cabin specifically, it’s hard to find.”

We started off again at a slower pace, trying to be quieter, listening this time to see if anyone was out there. We’d been making our way up the mountain through the woods for at least an hour at this point, trying to get away from Victor’s men.

In reality, I’d been trying to get away from Victor’s men for the last year, and I thought I finally had until they showed up at the lodge tonight. Gabe had taken one look at my face and known something was wrong, but he didn’t know the whole the story. That didn’t stop him from getting me out of there as quickly as possible though. We made it to my car only to find all four tires slashed. At that point, we headed into the woods.

Gabe had worked at the lodge in high school, so he knew these woods. Or so I hoped. We just needed to find somewhere to stay until morning when we could make our way off the mountain in the light, or possibly to a ranger station.

We made it to the abandoned cabin right as the rain started to fall, slowly at first but harder as we circled the cabin looking for a way in. Finally, Gabe decided to just break a window and reach through and unlock the door. Using his sweatshirt he managed to muffle the sound some, but it still seemed to echo across the mountain. Or maybe that was just my rising paranoia.

Inside it was musty smelling and everything was coated in a layer of dust, clearly no one had been here in years. That was a good sign. There was a fireplace but that was out of the question, the smoke would be too visible. Instead we found some questionable blankets and huddled on the sagging couch, trying to get warm. And I was trying very hard to ignore the idea that there were probably mice living in the furniture, at best.

We managed to doze off eventually, exhausted by the trek through the woods and the letdown from the adrenaline. A crash of thunder that rattled the windows startled both us from sleep some time later, causing my heart to pound in fear. It took a few minutes for me realize what had woken me and that it was just the rain, now a storm, and not someone breaking down the door.

Standing up to stretch, I wandered around the cabin peering out the windows trying to see out into the storm. Turning to look out the kitchen window, I saw a sight that made my blood run cold. A single handprint in the fog on the outside of the window.

“Gabe,” I screamed. “They found us!” Turning back towards him, trying to think of anyway out of this, I saw Gabe walk towards the door of the cabin. “Don’t,” I said, “they’re out there!”

“I know,” was all Gabe said as he opened the door and let in Victor’s men.

Check out the stories the other bloggers came up with:

Bronwyn
Kris
Paige

 

Jan27

Wednesday Randomness – Writing Pet Peeves

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Writing pet peeves is the topic for this week. What annoys us? What makes us want to tear our hair out?

Where do I start?

There are so many things, big and small.

This is a weirdly specific one, but I absolutely hate it when people use the phrase, “It’s like deja vu all over again.” That phrase just doesn’t even make sense to me. What is the point of it?

Difficult to pronounce names for places, or people. There’s a series I really like and in it is a prep school with a name that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to pronounce. I stumble over it in my head every time I come across it and it instantly pulls me out of the story. Someone has even told me how to say it a couple of times and I still can’t get it right. I get wanting to use things that are unique and different, but you can do that and still make them something that a reader can pronounce.

I have another pet peeves with names, certain names in general just annoy the ever-living hell out of me. As soon as I see them, I just want to stop reading. Names like Cash, or Tristan. For some reason, all bad boys are named Tristan. And on the subject of bad boys, why do authors  (often YA) always put bad boys in black jeans? I don’t ever actually see anyone in real life wearing black jeans, but in books, all the bad boys wear them. I’m sure they all shop at the only store that sells them, too.

“There are simply too many notes!” In other words, trying to stuff everything imaginable into one story. Let’s put in werewolves, vampires, witches, ghosts, psychics, and time travel all into one book! There is such a thing as too many elements in one story.

Insta-love. I know sometimes it’s the norm for certain genres, but unless it’s done REALLY well, just no.

And on the subject of love, love triangles. Are they ever necessary? There are so many more interesting ways to create conflict, either within the romance or not.

I could go on and on, but I think those are the important ones.

What pet peeves do the other bloggers have? Click the links below to find out:

Bronwyn
Jessica
Kris
Kellie
Gwen
Jess

 

Jan13

Promptly Penned #1

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Promplty Penned

This year we’ve added a new flash fiction type entry to our blogging activities, it’s called Promptly Penned and it happens once a month on a Wednesday. The idea is that we all start with a phrase or a couple of lines of dialogue. These lines can serve as inspiration or can be worked into the flash fiction piece, it all depends on where it takes each of us. Here’s the prompt for this month:

“Some choices are easy, like fudge ripple or butter pecan, some choices aren’t. Can you guess which one this was?”

***

Butter pecan? Fudge ripple? Butter pecan? Fudge ripple? I’d been standing in the open door of the grocery store freezer case for so long that my face had gone numb and I still couldn’t pick an ice cream flavor. Screw it, I thought. After the week I’ve had I deserve both. I grabbed a pint of each and headed toward the check out.

 As I waited in line, watching each incompetent person ahead of my try to figure out how to use the self-checkout machine, I went through every horrible thing that had happened this week.

First there was the lady at work who insisted on butting into every meeting and project I was a part of, even if she wasn’t invited. Nothing like making me feel completely incompetent. Then there were the redneck neighbors and their blaring country music until all hours of the night. And the neighbors on the other side with the ugly, yappy dog that had tried to take my foot off. Thank goodness for winter boots. The flat tire in twenty degree weather. And finally, the surprise visit from my parents that had left me feeling like a failure, as always.

By the time I got to the checkout, I was about ready to swap out the two pints of ice cream for a fifth of rum.

 Three hours later I was passed out on the couch in an ice cream coma, blissfully ignoring the world. Around midnight, I sat up suddenly, not sure what had woken me. Getting up off the couch, I stepped in a pool of melted ice cream. Great, I thought, a mess to clean up. As I tried to orient myself I realized what had woken me. I could hear the sound of breaking glass coming from the back door. It must have been the initial crash that woke me and now someone was clearing out the rest to get to the locks.

As silently as I could, I made my way to the kitchen where I had left my phone, taking care to avoid all of the squeaky spots in the wood floor. Once in the kitchen, I looked around for my phone and realized I had, in fact, taken it upstairs to charge it.  Damn! Now what?

I heard the back door open and realized I had to make a decision. I grabbed the chef’s knife out of the dish drainer and tip toed over the kitchen door that led out to the back entryway and hid behind it. Could I do this? Could I defend myself against someone breaking into my house and maybe kill them? Absolutely.

Choosing an ice cream flavor was almost impossible but deciding I could kill someone to protect myself was the easiest decision I’d ever made.

I saw a shadow cross the threshold of the kitchen door and took a deep breath.

See what stories the other ladies came up with this week:

Kris
Bronwyn
Jess
Paige
Jessica
Kellie