Several times in any given month, I'll be approached by someone who wants "text" to fiddle around with. Sometimes I hear from graphic designers who are working on a project; sometimes it's a songwriter or a performance poet. Occasionally it's an actor or actress who wants swanky new audition monologue material -- that one always surprises me. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would think to ask me for that sort of thing, but I'm flattered all the same.

More often than not, I regretfully turn down these requests unless the asker can turn up something already existing on my LJ that he/she wants to tweak to custom/publish on a personal webpage/etc. I've never yet declined permission in this regard. If I didn't expect other people to see/read/sample/quote my casual writing, I wouldn't want it on the internet. All I've ever required is that you credit me with the original work.

As most of you know, novels are my specialty. I have a hard time writing short stories and even (these days, though it was not always the case) poetry. Once I get in that LARGE PROJECT mindset, it's hard to devote any attention to other creative activities.

The one exception to this (personal, but by no means universal) rule was revealed to me when Warren ran his Strange Machines stunt -- wherein readers were asked to contribute one piece of "flash fiction" comprised of 200 words or less. As some of you may recall, I submitted a little story called Cinderella When. You can find it here, in all its brief glory.

Since then, every now and again, I've been stashing away bits of similar prose over on another journal -- and as of last night, I've decided to call this other journal "complete." It's finished at a perfect 2000 words, with ten small, polished pieces of flash fiction (including Cinderella When). Each piece is an untraditional take on some facet of a well-known fairy tale. I'm pretty proud of them, to tell you the truth. A couple of these things make me want to pat myself on the back until I crack a rib.

But what to do with these prose nuggets?

It's not like anyone is going to collect and print them; and they're not doing anyone any good under lock and key in a secret journal. I've decided that I want to make them available to all the people who have been asking for material -- and to those of you who maybe just want to take a peek at 'em out of pure curiosity.

So here's the deal: On New Year's Day, I'm going to unlock the journal and let anyone who's interested have a gander at it. But if you (a). want to see these flash fiction spots now, dammit, now! (b). would like express written absolute permission to use the material however you see fit* -- for inclusion in songs, poetry, graphic artwork, scripts, monologues, or anything else you can think of, or (c). you feel like helping your writing red-head-in-residence raise a little badly-needed dough for Christmas shopping, then another option is available unto you.

The project in its entirety is a perfect 2000 words**, and I thought to myself, "Self, sort of minimal amount might not be too much to ask?" Thus I set up this paypal tip which you see below. For a $2 donation, you can have full, unrestricted access to the alternate journal and the ten tidy pieces which lurk within -- plus you shall have, as stated above, my complete permission to do with those pieces what you will. Please be sure to include your LiveJournal handle (there is a place provided in the form). I'll be checking my email at least once every hour or so up through bedtime tonight; and when a donation comes through I'll go add the sender to the alternate journal's friends list with all due speed.

Not interested? No big whoop.
Broke? Boy, do I hear you.
Can't be bothered? Again, I understand.
Patient enough to wait until Jan. 1? Fair enough.

Don't have an LJ but want in on the early action? Now there I can help you. I've got these pieces in a regular old MS WORD document that I can email to anyone off-site. It's not all pretty-fied like the alternate journal (sort of) is, but I'd like to think that this experiment is about the content and not the presentation. I'm probably fooling myself, but there you go. Email me at cherie . priest @ gmail . com if you're interested in pursuing this option.

Anyway, thanks for reading.
I'm going to get to work.

~w_w~

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* barring internet reproduction prior to Jan 1, 2005 ... and hoping that you'd be so kind as to credit me with original authorship.
** including the titles in that word count.