The one where I wrote partial song lyrics

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“I’ve been washed ashore, wondering what to do / you left me there like the foam / but unlike the next wave you’re not coming home / I’m washed ashore, washed ashore / wondering what to do without you…”

Kat strummed the final chord on her burnt orange guitar, brushing her blonde bangs out of her face. She grinned at the cheering crowd, throwing her arms up in the air, taking it in for a moment. Then she gestured to the shorter girl with curly, brown hair and freckles on her left, who’d just walked over to her:

“Mackenzie on bass!” Kat announced as Mackenzie threw an arm over her shoulders.

The tall girl on Kat’s right with cropped black hair and the deep purple guitar dance-skipped over Kat.

“Jacquelyn on lead guitar!”

The crowd continued to cheer, and Kat waved their drummer up: “Liam on drums!”

Liam threw up a rocker fist, the grin on his face mirroring Kat’s, as he pocketed his drumsticks in the back pocket of his ripped dark blue jeans. He high fived the girls before coming to stand on the end next to Jacquelyn.

“Band of Thieves everyone!” the announcer shouted into the microphone.

The four musicians grasped hands, their grins beaming out in the audience, and bowed. Then they jumped and skipped off the stage to the continued applause of the crowd.

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This story started out as a contemplative beach scene. Then it became a story about a miniature tabaxi, Kettle, finding a mermaid on an island. And that’s what I was set on refining for this week’s story, but on the way home from the fair, I listened to “Long Live” by Taylor Swift. My favorite line is: “…for a moment a band of thieves in ripped up jeans got to rule the world” and I wondered if I could write a story about a band and name their song “Washed Ashore.” I shared the idea with Ant and he was intrigued by it! So I ran with it and you have the story you just read. It’s magical to me what two words can become and how many ideas can come from just two words.

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A group of flash fiction writers writes a story based on a prompt put together by the host, @embarnettauthor. You can follow the hashtag here: #flashfictionmagic.

I’ve been wanting to write and share more stories here and on social media, so I’m hoping this is a low-key way to do that. Enjoy!

You can read the first story of September, “Tick-Tock”, here.

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Writing Process Notes:

9/5/23 // 7:22pm-8:10pm. During a heads down prickle with my new hedgie community. Brainstorming session for the story.

9/7/23 // 11:39am-12pm. dining room table. It started as a contemplative contemporary YA scene and I just wasn’t feeling it.

9/8/23

// 7:53am-8:05am. brainstorm with Ant about “washed ashore” ideas.

// 10:17am-11:28am. at the Gold Country Fair beef shows. It legit started as a fantasy story staring my mini-tabaxi Kettle finding a mermaid.

// 1:26pm-. while driving home from the fair, “Long Live” came on and I thought, What if I wrote a story about a band with a song titled “Washed AShore”? I told Ant and he loved it.

// 3:10pm-5ish. initial drafting of the story while co-working with Laurisa on FaceTime 🙂

9/9/23 // 6:45pm-8:47pm. talking over band details with Ant–musicians needed, named added lead guitarist, tweaked my lyrics a teeny bit. typed up story in Word and copied to blog and found a picture 🙂 Word Count: 229