Free to Flash! by Natalie Bowers

In May last year, whilst in Krakow for a family wedding, my sister (who took this photo) and I spotted this. Yes, it's a knitted bike. Apparently, the phenomenon is known as yarnbombing - you go somewhere, you knit something, you leave it in place for others to enjoy. Well, this discovery planted a little seed in my head, which, almost a year later, has grown into flashpointing - you go somewhere, you write something, you leave it in place for others to enjoy.

A month or so ago, I suggested this idea to Calum Kerr (the director of the UK's first National Flash Fiction Day) as something flash-fiction writers could do in the run-up to the event on May 16th. He agreed that the idea was crazy, but that it might just be crazy enough to work, so he set about putting together a team to administer the project. That team now consists of Alex Thornber, Rachael Dunlop and Emily Cleaver. Between them they've done a cracking job of getting the website up and running, and writers have been flashpointing all over the country, all over the world! Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration but it has spread to Ireland, Austria, the Czech Republic and the USA, and people have flashpointed in parks, playgrounds, cafes, cinemas and even on underground trains.

Flashpointing isn't about creating literary masterpieces - although those are certainly welcome - it's about the freedom to write and share. Anyone can do it. Just go somewhere, anchor yourself in your surroundings, write whatever you feel prompted to write, then leave it there for people to find and read. You can also take a photo and email it to the flashpoints team who'll post it on the website for even more people to enjoy. The project isn't going to finish with National Flash-Fiction Day either; it's going to go on for as long as people want it to.

I've done several flashpoints myself, and while it's been fun, it's also been strangely liberating. When I know that I only have a finite amount of time to write something which I'm not going to have the chance to edit before sharing with the world - usually the amount of time it takes me to drink a coffee - I have to silence the voice in my head that tells me my writing's not good enough. I just have to just get on with it. And when I leave that piece of paper - rolled up in a fence, tucked under a cup, wedged between two library books - I feel just as I do when I leave Christmas presents under the tree for my children: excited and hopeful. I also feel a little bit naughty. I am British after all!