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Who is Icy Sedgwick?
Icy is a folklore blogger and host of the Fabulous Folklore podcast. She is based in the north east of England, where she was born and raised amid the folk tales and legends of Tyneside and Northumberland. Icy is fascinated by history, cinema, art, and the occult, and griffins will always be her favourite mythical beast. She also writes dark fantasy novellas, Gothic short stories and the occasional weird Western, and she holds a PhD in Film Studies!
A great photo you’ve taken.
There is such a wonderful warmth to the character as she realises what she has, rather than what she could have lost. A great sliding doors motif. ‘Slander is still just a legal term.’ Very clever.
Adam B @revhappiness
interesting spin between the glamourous celebrity life where she has no privacy left to herself and the modest but perhaps more fulfilling one. You handled this really elegantly.
marc nash
Wow, now this is truly one of your best Ice. You filled her out in two separate ways. The celebrity and the simple waitress. I’m damned impressed. Your gift for description, ashes on photographs, bottles thrown out windows…great stuff. Hard to believe this one was free.
I really enjoyed this. I like how well you captured her confusion on returning to the simple life, and the last line was perfect – is Ronan fiddling with his cameras, or has it all been a dream?
Just awesome! Which reality will she end up with? I love how you filled out your characters in such a short space!
Adam – Originally she was going to be so consumed by anger at not being recognised that she’d do something really awful to get the attention but she ignored what I wanted and did her own thing.
Marc – I suppose you don’t always appreciate what you have until it’s gone.
Carrie – *blushes* Compliments from you are worth their weight in gold.
Sam – I’m glad you spotted the ambiguity! I thought I’d let the reader decide.
Laura – Yeah, flash fiction doesn’t usually give you enough room to do what you want!
This is great Icy – perhaps the best story I’ve read of yours. Two different pictures of the same person here. Amazing.
Jim
I agree with everyone else-this story is exceptional. Made me feel happy to be lil ole me. The voice and characterization made Jane/Marlena breathe. Brilliant.
Seems like she would have been happier as the waitress. Going to remind myself to be grateful for the simple things today, thank you 🙂 Wonderful job.
It’s an old story, but one that bears retelling. The grass is always greener and so on. Easy to judge when you’re on the outside, harder to live with the reality.
I agree with Carrie – this is one of your best. “…cradled in the arms of Jack Daniels.” I love that line. Incredible description throughout. Bravo!
Very tactile, it was so easy to crawl into Marlene’s skin. Verythign felt so vivid, so real. I might not have the heart to laugh at TMZ today. *L*
Excellent use of the prompt, Icy, not what I thought of, but brilliant choice. The last line is a killer. Great job!
There’s a certain wistfulness about this story that is affecting. I wonder if Marlena was unhappy about waking up to her movie star life? Very good story.
Wow, this one was awesome. Both lives read so well–such pain in the one where she’s “successful,” and such happiness where she’s just a normal girl. I guess the last line turns this one into a horror story, at least for her. Great story!
Great job.I bet she wishes she could stay back there.
It’s too bad the waitress gig didnt’ last. She seemed happier that way. Be careful what you wish for… 🙂
Wonderfully written.
Fantastic – a tight whirl in the rush of wanting, needing, desiring something then realizing it not only doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t exist for ‘you.’ Great prose – no sentimental touches, just a strong, straightforward jab into the chest of reality. There is disappointment, but relief, too. Great story.
Jim – I think I’m very slowly getting the hang of characterisation…
G.P. – Yeah, originally I wanted the celebrity lifestyle to just be boring, but after writing this, I did think “It must be awful to be that famous!”
Shannon – Glad I provoked happy thoughts!
Valerie – Yeah, the concept is a familiar one, but I think I might have accidentally written that the grass IS actually greener, although obviously that depends on what you want out of your situation. Sure her career success is low when she’s a waitress, but she has friends who care, and a boyfriend who loves her. That’s success too. So much harder to attain than financial success.
Deanna – I wanted to make her a ‘proper’ drinker than thought Jack Daniels said it all, compared to wine!
Monica – I’m proud to say I don’t read celebrity magazines, or take that much interest in what they’re doing. If an article isn’t about their latest movie/book/album/art exhibition, I’m generally not interested.
Danni – I have no idea where this one came from. I just got the mental image of the cigarette ash on the glossy mag and away I went!
John – It’s up to you if Marlena did wake up to her old life again…hopefully, if she did, she’d realise it’s perhaps not too late to change things.
Eric – Thank you for the prompt!
Shadowflame1974 – It’s funny, I used to work as a barista and I hated it…I’m not some famous TV star by any stretch of the imagination but I sometimes think I didn’t appreciate how simple my life was then.
Ganymeder – Yeah, too bad she didn’t have Clarence around to help her out…but I don’t think she needed him.
Dijeratic – Thank you! I’m not sure I know how to do sentimental..
Brilliant characterisation, great descriptions. You put your reader right into her lives. You made her even more interesting by the way she couldn’t really remember her ‘real’ life..:)
Great descriptions and wonderful ambiguity. I was reminded of ‘Sliding Doors’ too.
I marvel at your ability to write such consistently high quality flashes every week.
Since everyone’s covered the glossy shot of possible life here, I’ll just congratulate you on “Slander.” That’s a heck of a production name for her to slip into.
L’Aussie – Thank you!
Tim – I love Sliding Doors. I think we’ve all had one of those “What if…” moments.
Chloe – *blush*
John – It’s really hard trying to think of names for TV shows!
I really love this one Icy. Great, great story. I love how she realizes that perhaps her former life wasn’t so bad, and that what she’s missing is what she left behind. The ending was perfect.
Nicely written short, bringing home the fact that wealth and fame do not necessarily bring happiness.
It feels comforting that her boyfriend is also present in her quiet and anonymous life. Maybe she’ll spice up their relationship after this one? heh
Fantastic story, Icy!
Ah, the road not taken. It’s a seductive line of thought.
I recall reading somewhere about the dissolution felt by people who spend their entire lives trying to climb the ladder, only to discover it’s been leaning against the wrong wall the whole time.
Great story, very vivid. Not much else I can say that hasn’t already been said!
It’s a compelling story. That last line sounds like waking up to a nightmare. I’ve often thought about the difficulties the ultra-famous must have, including never knowing for sure if someone likes you for yourself. Are you familiar with the David Lynch film “Mulholland Drive”? It flashes back and forth between an aspiring actress’s real and fantasy lives – one of my favorite film/stories.
I just adored this whole piece so much. So much. But I do hope the ending is him making photographs, NOT the paparazzi.
You keep outdoing yourself Icy! I admire the clarity of your wiring in this one and the easy sense of belonging as she fell back into the rhythm a contented life. So very good.
Great stuff here Icy. Not only cleverly done (loved the ambiguous ending!), but also tender : “Ronan hasn’t smiled at Marlena like that in months” says it all really!
Great story Icy 🙂 Well done.
What a fabulous story, I really enjoyed it.