I managed to finish a story during NERAX

As it’s about 400 words, that’s about 50 words a day. Which feels like about what I did. Bit by bit, adding up until I decided I was done. I’m calling it “Animal Magnetism”, not the most original title for a story about a lonely monkey. For this one, I used a set of […]

Yes! I finished story #5! And #7!

And it was only a quarter past midnight last night, as opposed to the early weeks of sleep deprivation when I stayed up until 2 am on a couple of Sundays trying to meet the story a week deadline. The story I began fifth turned out be to about 6700 words, called “65 Million Years […]

Burning the candle on three ends

For the last month, I’ve been burning my candle on three ends. First, there’s the challenge of trying to write a story a week. Second, there’s the spring Real Ale festival that I help organize, NERAX. And the third is spreading the word about native bees, with Friends of Bees. So it’s probably not too […]

Re: Happy Accident

One of the writers I like but haven’t read nearly enough of is an Israeli writer named Etgar Karet. There was a very good reading of one of his stories at end of the latest episode of This American Life, called “Happy Accident“.

I skipped ahead to Story #6!

While I’m still working on story #5, I thought I might write something quick. So I checked Twitter for #writingprompts and found this: @Kelsye: In SIX WORDS or fewer, can you write an inspiring story? So I did.

Half a story done is twice as better than none

Well, story #5 is only half done. At this rate, I’m averaging more like a story in two weeks. Not as exciting as a story a week, but if this is a sustainable pace, I’m happy with that. It’s still infinity times faster than I was finishing stories last year. Like the saying says, Half […]

Story #4 is done

I only stayed up until 12:30 last night finishing story #4. So I suppose that’s progress. But I’m still a week behind. And I still want to write two flash stories in a week to get caught up. Anyway, this one is called “For We So Love The Worlds”, 700 words about a soul working […]

Winter seeds for the birds

Last fall, I cut down all the volunteer sunflowers that had grown in my community garden plot, and brought them home. I propped them at the top of the backyard, hoping the birds would appreciate them. This morning, I finally saw that they do! A few chickadees were picking on the sunflower heads. It’s nice […]

I dreamed that Sauron had a spaceship in his desk

Well, I made good progress most days last week. The best day was one where I actually started writing in the morning. Even so I still stayed up until 5 a.m. last night to finish story #3. This A Story A Week challenge is giving me serious sleep deprivation. Now I need to write two […]

Should I finish story #3 or start story #4?

I didn’t finish story #3 last night either. If I keep up the pace of the last few days, it’s going to take me a couple more days to finish it. Which doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to write a fourth story by Sunday night. I have decided that finishing what I start […]