Nicegrandma and the Contest

Tied for the win with "Kat's new friend"  -- 12/7/08

ID: 896794   (Rated: 13+) Daily Flash Fiction Challenge  Enter your story of 300 words or less. Note new starting time! by arakun the twisted raccoon

           Grandma slid the mouse to click on ‘tools,’ then on word count.  “Three hundred forty words  Too long.  Got to lose forty words.  But this is all good stuff!”

         She knew if she wanted to be in the contest some of it had to go.  Maybe the second paragraph -- no that was where she introduced the characters.  “All right, words!  Forty of you have to go.  Any volunteers?

         “Thought not.  So I’ll have  to choose if I want to get this posted before my head hits the pillow.  These other writers who enter the contest are good, but I think I have a chance with this if I can just get rid of those forty words.”  Grandma had a habit of talking to herself, though she would argue.  “I am not talking to myself.  I’m talking to my muse. She lives in the pretty seashell on my desk.”

         She scrolled again. “There are some words we can do without; that one character talks too much anyway.  Now we’re getting somewhere.  That’s eighteen words gone.  What’s forty take away eighteen?  Twenty-two to go.  I can do this.  Does the reader really have to know that her dress was yellow?  Three more words are gone.  Now what else can go?”  The muse in the seashell didn’t answer. 

         “This paragraph is really good.  It goes right back in after the contest, but for now, it’s bye-bye.  There, I’ve done it --283 words.”

           Grandma clicked on save and typed in the title and with a sigh of satisfaction she leaned back  “I think I have a winner here, but you really never know?”

         The only response from the muse in the seashell was a faint snore.