When the assignments came out for Round 2 of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest 2020 I was not really excited about the genre selection. As I am in the same group, number 44, the parameters were:
Genre – Historic Fiction; Setting – Fort; Prop – Scissors
This took some time and at first seeing my constraints, I felt empty. I had once worked on Prickett’s Fort: An American Frontier Musical in Fairmont, WV but that was the absolute limit of my knowledge on forts, or frontier times in American history. So I thought on it for the night. The next day I asked my husband (who works from home) to look up some lingo from frontier times. I went to work and he, ever the quick and resourceful researcher, sent me a few links with tons of examples. In between tables, I looked up phrases , felt a twinge, like a hint, but nothing near a real pull.
I was worried. It was already Saturday evening and I still couldn’t tap out any ideas. I was sure this blockage was permanent and I would never really be a writer. I was agonizingly positive in that moment I would be blessed to hear thoughts and voices in my head telling me stories to share and yet cursed to be unable to fully express the depth and enormity of those thoughts.I was sure I was a failure. I still feel that way, to some level, every day.
But back to the last weekend in August 2020. I was at work, doing what I do, alongside the Bulgarian Princess, to take care of the mostly regular crowd using charm and style. (I’ve always said if you have to do something to live, at least do that well.) And there it peeked up at me. In between taking table 5’s order, listening for the take-out phone and the call of the kitchen bellowing for food to be ran outside I listened to the back of my mind for random thoughts. After work, I still didn’t really have an idea until I remembered an app where you can instantly learn which Native American Tribe lived on the land of a present day town or city. The phone number to text is 907-312-5085 and is only available in the US, idk, and it connects to Canada. (If you know the short code to text, please lemme know.)
Then…woosh…as soon as I stopped trying so hard I had an idea right away, but I didn’t feel confident about it. Still, I tapped it all out, in sessions of a couple hours each. It was hard and not really enjoyable but I guess that’s how it has to be sometimes.
Then it came time to edit. I was at 1250+ words and I still didn’t feel I had told the story I needed to tell. Will I make it to Round 3? I have no idea, but it’s out of my hands. I feel so bad about it I chose to not share the story I entered but this better version at 1,245 words. I feel this is the best representation of my idea.
Besides…it’s my blog and I want it that way!
https://cd-writes.com/2020/10/14/compassion/
cd writes 
Great!