Beginning beginning

Here is the final product of my initial attempt. I'm not sure it's tweetable, but it's definitely shorter than your average story. I'm pleased with it, as a first effort. (If you're interested, more about the process follows the story.)

My tunes, my life

You always nag -- "Turn the volume down!"
You don't understand. I'm engulfed, music means life.
Anyway, it's not like I need to hear, to cross the road.
Not since the neck-brace came off.

So it took me a bit to get started on this. I knew I wanted to do it, and I knew I could, since I have (way) in the past. However, where to begin was a problem. My brain was going in circles trying to settle on a subject to explore, or a format to try, or an emotion to evoke, without ever alighting on anything completely satisfying. I changed tactics at that point, started to do a bit of reading up on flash fiction to see if I could find either further inspiration or guidance regarding a starting point.

I found a couple sites with some good tips for somebody starting to write short shorts. Now, these, it would seem to me, are the sorts of tips that would benefit writers in general, and short-form writers (poets, writers of longer short fiction) in particular. However, I found that they gave me a boost at getting started, since it's easier to focus on something small-yet-signifying when you have a discrete place to begin beginning.


From the first site, the advice I came away with can be summed up so:
- Begin by establishing
     a) what's the story about? what's the theme, message, feeling you want the reader left with when finished?
     b) what's the plot? stick to one, closely kept subject

The second site, further, gave me:
     c) what's the conflict/tension? how does it resolve?

I began by simply answering the questions, as bits of a first draft if they came that way, or as just ideas and responses if not.

a:
Sardonic, proudly self-deprecating; pay attention when you're plugged in and wrapped up (i.e. ipod on, perhaps hoodie up or texting, while crossing the street)

b:
young adult sitting in hospital, ruing but also owning the fact that she likes her music loud and her media streaming

c:
Turn the volume down on that thing, they're always saying.
Uh-uh, I like my music so loud, it hurts.
total immersion or nothing
bass so loud i can feel it running through me
surround me
all i'm aware of
drown out the noise
Well, at least I've still got my ears.
Looks down at leg in cast... get some important local musician to sign cast...