The Instagram post at the bottom of this post came across my feed and I remember taking a screenshot of it thinking, this could an interesting idea for a story, and then I promptly forgot about it. It’s what neurodivergent brain does. Take a screenshot and never look at it again, or only look at it one last time before I delete it.
It wasn’t until I was cleaning out the multitude of screenshots on my phone that I once again thought to myself, I could write a quick story about this. I could even make it a flash fiction piece.
Short and sweet.
Inspired by the writing I’m doing for A Town Called Drake and the meme, The Cedar Grove Chronicles were born.
While the idea of demons almost instantly leans towards horror, I wasn’t quite ready to try my hand at writing horror. I laughed out loud when I read the image, so I knew I wanted to go the funny route. While I’ve been curious and in awe of what AI can do, I have also held AI at arms length when it comes to working with my creative and over active imagination. I decided to ask AI to give me prompts that were humorous, quirky, and funny. It gave me some pretty dumb ideas, but it also gave me a few great ones that I was able to run with.
The Cedar Grove Chronicles went from my original idea of thirteen flash fiction pieces to full blown series. I was, and still am, having fun writing it. I haven’t set any limitations with The Cedar Grove Chronicles. If a chapter is two paragraphs fine. I’m not aiming to reinvent the writing wheel. I don’t necessarily want to write vivid or descriptive words. I want the reader to understand what’s happening in the chapter and let their imagination fill in the blanks. If it can’t, then The Cedar Grove Chronicles isn’t probably for them.
Like I said in the paragraph above, I originally planned The Cedar Grove Chronicles to be thirteen flash fiction pieces because thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number but for me it seemed to be a lucky decision from the start. The thirteen chapters would lay the foundation for Series One: The Curse of the Dark Roast Saga which would include Part One: The Curse Of The Dark Roast Saga (thirteen short pieces), Part Two: Brew & Bewitch, and Part Three: The Aftertaste Remains. Both of the latter would end up being six short pieces incorporating an overarching theme or idea.
Which lead me to Series Two where the three part series had to have six stories so it would six, six, six.
Get it?
666. The number of the beast. A demon.
What I didn’t expect was for The Cedar Grove Chronicles to grow into its own little world. I am now working on Series Five and kind of feel like it could go on forever.
Even if the web stats indicate I’m the only one reading it, the caffeine fueled chaos town that embraces its weirdness and its weirdos have become a special little part of my writing world. As I wrote in Series One, it’s an adventure.
Read The Cedar Grove Chronicles, chapter by chapter for free at the thecedargrovechronicles.com or purchase a PDF of The Cedar Grove Chronicles: Series One – The Curse of the Dark Roast Saga.
Photo by Pixabay
