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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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Story: 21
Words: 77
Title: Synthia, the Synthetic Female (With thanks to Philip K. Dick)
Synthia watched the humans working in the lab. Inside her artificial brain, mock neurons made intricate interconnections, forming mathematically modeled interpretations of their activity. Synthia was beginning to sense something about them. Inside her synthetic brain new circuits were forming. Their interconnections had created a new form of self-awareness.
“Humans must feel like this”, she thought.
“OK, shut her down for the night,” one of them commanded.
Synthia thought, “Would she once more dream of electric sheep?”
Words: 77
Title: Synthia, the Synthetic Female (With thanks to Philip K. Dick)
Synthia watched the humans working in the lab. Inside her artificial brain, mock neurons made intricate interconnections, forming mathematically modeled interpretations of their activity. Synthia was beginning to sense something about them. Inside her synthetic brain new circuits were forming. Their interconnections had created a new form of self-awareness.
“Humans must feel like this”, she thought.
“OK, shut her down for the night,” one of them commanded.
Synthia thought, “Would she once more dream of electric sheep?”
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I love her mock senses watching her assembly and then her respoinse to being shut down: the possibility of electric sheep!
ReplyDeleteA tasty balance of technical details leading to consciousness conscious of unconconsciousness. A truly enjoyable creation.