What is a micro story?

I was first introduced to this idea on Jeffrey Callison's Sacramento NPR radio interview show called Insight. He interviewed Jason Sinclair Long about his blog "Flash Fiction 365". You can hear the interview here.

The challenge is to write a micro-story each day. The length of the story is determined by throwing a pair of dice, preferably of different colors. One color represents the tens digit and the other the ones digit. So the story can be from 11 to 66 words. Of course some lengths are left out using this method. You could also use one die and throw it twice. Or use a die with 8 sides. Or you can do what I did and create a random number generator in Excel. This method doesn't miss any of the numbers. Mine will return a random number between 11 and 99. I am happy to share the formula if you email me.

The title is not part of the word count. Most word processors have a word count function that is very useful. You can start with a title or add it later or you can have someone suggest a title. Even though the original idea is to write a story, I plan to include poetry and perhaps essay.
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Thursday, December 09, 2010

Story: 365
Words: 46

Title: Synthia Begins a New Era

Synthia rose early, that is she turned her attention outward, and went to the server farm in the Marsport cloud center. Her masquerade worked and garnered her access to citytrans01 that controlled all transport. She rebooted it with her own program that initiated rescue plan one.

Comment: I thought it fitting to end with a story about Synthia, the synthetic female since I will be writing about her in 2011. It’s a teaser about the trouble that Synthia and Slug Johnson get into and what comes of it.

It has been both a challenge and a pleasure to take on this project and it has given me a renewed interest in writing. So, thanks for reading and watch for developing short stories about Synthia and another about the Spewt, both stories about consciousness. Here’s the link to the blog “Stories of Consciousness”:

http://storiesofconsciousness.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Story: 364
Words: 72

Title: Anxious Lover

She leaned over and gave him a kiss. His lips stiffened against hers as he enjoyed the surprise. They pulled away and then resumed the kiss, their lips a bit apart. He tried an exploratory tongue, but she broke the kiss and looked into his eyes. He could feel his face flushing, his heartbeat increasing. His hand moved to her leg and she turned looking away from him. The lesson was clear.

Comment: Wow! Next to last story. Hard to believe it’s been a year.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Story: 363
Words: 54

Title: Ancient Symbols

The choir was singing one of those old hymns that I remembered from my childhood. I looked around the sanctuary at the symbols of ancient Christianity and wondered how they were preserved and came to be here on this lifeless moon. I suppose they bring comfort to some, but I find them oddly disquieting.

Monday, December 06, 2010

Story: 362
Words: 44

Title: Buying Love

He took her to the best restaurants in town, lavished her with flowers, bought her expensive jewelry. But she remained out of reach, a porcelain doll dressed in haute couture. So he looked to another and left her weeping, wondering where she went wrong.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Story: 361
Words: 27

Title: Passion

The moons rose tonight in synchronization, just five seconds apart. Earth is a long way off but I hunger more for the mysterious. My passion, my love.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Story: 360
Words: 33

Title: The Museum

In the twenty-seven years she had lived in the city she had never been to the museum. She passed it every day on the way to work and just imagined what was inside.

Friday, December 03, 2010

Story: 359
Words: 47

Title: The Apron

She looked somehow regal in her white apron moving about the kitchen humming some song I’d never heard. The smile on her face told of many hours creating gastronomic wonders for us to enjoy. The apron hangs on the wall now telling her stories around the table.