Mat Twassel: Blog

This morning I posted three stories to a new Universe called Puzzles. It’s public, so feel free to use it for your own story or poem. The idea is that a puzzle should play an important role in the story. The puzzle might be a jigsaw puzzle, a crossword puzzle, a riddle, or really any sort of mystery, enigma, or conundrum.

If you’d like to have me attempt to illustrate your story, let me know.

In the seven years I knew Emma, I did more than a thousand pictures of her and put her in many hundreds of little stories, always with her blessing, often with her input. Not yet 35, Emma died earlier this year. I feel it necessary to celebrate Emma’s life. Her story is certainly more complicated and interesting and full of vitality than my portrayals. I do what I can. It seemed appropriate to me to post a little piece about Emma on Easter. I think she’d be tickled at the irreverence of it. But no matter what the season, day, year, Emma remains in my mind, ever fun, ever sexy, ever naughty, ever kind.

Just now I did another little “painting” of Emma. There’s no story for it, and there might not be, but for those of you interested in the image, you might find it here:

https://mmtwassel.wixsite.com/stories/emma-easter

By now you’ve probably all sprung forward, but just in case you’ve slept in, I’ve put up a little story today as a reminder. Coming up on the calendar is St. Patrick’s Day, so I’ve scheduled two stories I hope are appropriate. And then on March 18 in honor of the next full moon I’ve scheduled “Full Moon Trilogy,” which I think might be of interest to some because the illustration is one I did more than a dozen years ago.

My story this morning, The Big Dipper, includes a recipe for brownies concocted by an Artificial Intelligence engine. I've made several batches and enjoyed them very much. If you make some, let me know what you think.

Only 9 writing days left for the BSFSF. If you haven’t written your little story, do it today. If you’ve written one, how about another? Contact me to get your invitation.

Name: BSFSF
Description:
Very short erotic “stroke” stories of no more than 18 lines (including title line and any blank lines), with each line containing no more than 70 characters of text, including spaces. BSFSF stories are text only. Because of the nature of SOL formatting, BSFSF stories here may end up having more than 18 lines.
Long Description:
1. What is BSFSF?

BSFSF stands for Bradley Stoke Flash Stroke Festival. The first such festival ran in November of 2003 and attracted more than one hundred stories. BSFSF stories are supposed to fit on a single computer screen. For the purposes of the festival, this means no more than 18 lines (including title line and any blank lines), with each line containing no more than 70 characters of text, including spaces. BSFSF stories are text only. Because of the nature of SOL formatting, BSFSF stories here may end up having more than 18 lines.

2. Who or What is Bradley Stoke?

Bradley Stoke said at the time of the original festival, "Perhaps more interesting than a stroke story festival would be one which combined the current vogue for flash fiction with stroke."

3. What is flash? What is stroke? What is flash stroke?

Flash is very short short story. It may be poetic, but it is fiction, not poetry, not song, not mattress tags or shopping lists or recipes for eggplant parmesan. Stroke is fiction that is intended to sexually arouse the reader. Successful stroke fiction inspires masturbation and provokes orgasm. So flash stroke is a very short short story designed to sexually arouse its readers.
Okay, how is it accomplished?

A traditional sex story relies on attractive characters in exciting situations with lots of drawn-out tease and ever-increasing sexual tensions. Not much room in flash for long seductive skeins of tease and judiciously gradual increases of juicy tensions—that's not to say foreplay is out the window, but I suspect the flash stroke story might need to rely on powerfully exciting images, ones which continue to resonate in the reader's consciousness, ones which cause the reader to dwell and delve and dig between the lines. Either that or something in the story must hit the reader's hot buttons so expertly that instant climax is inevitable. Instant climax inevitable? You see what the writer's up against?

4. Is the festival open to anyone?

Yes. But because the story is part of an SOL Event, an invitation is required. If you would like to participate, please send me an invitation request. If you know writers who might be interested, please let them know about this festival.

5. When.

Your BSFSF stories need to be submitted on or before December 24, 2021.