31 Days, 31 Stories

I've spent most of my spare time on novel edits this year, and things are moving right along, but I miss those bursts of creativity that inspired the weird, Twilight Zoneish flash fiction I used to write regularly. I haven't worked on a single short story for far too long, and now I've definitely got the itch.

So I'm devoting the month of May to the StoryADay challenge. I've known about it for years but never thought I'd have the time or energy to try it. I probably still don't, but ready or not, I'll be setting a timer for 30 minutes every night, and I can't wait to see what sort of surreal stories I end up with.

Unlike Write1Sub1, the StoryADay goal isn't to craft a publishable piece as fast as possible but rather to write a complete story each day with a beginning, middle, and end. Something between 100-500 words will be my target range, and whether or not I'm happy with it, I'll set each one aside to be fleshed out later this summer. Some days, I may end up with more of an outline than a cohesive story, but that's okay as long as I'm writing something new every day.

How the heck will I find inspiration for 31 new stories? Good question. I've decided to use some of my haiku as starters. I went through Maikro and picked 31 of my favorites, and I'll be turning each of them into flash-sized tales — something I've wanted to attempt for a while.

Will I eventually submit these stories for publication? Share them with subscribers? Leave them to gather digital dust? We'll see. For now, it's all about giving myself a creative boost, and the best part will be having my wife by my side as we both write stories every night. You're welcome to join us!