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, August 10, 2010
Story: 244
Date: August 10, 2010
Words: 17
Title: Green Fruit
Green blueberries taste horrible, but the taste of green papaya, now that’s something to look forward to.
Comment: Two days today since I missed yesterday.
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Story: 243
Date: August 9, 2010
Words: 94
Title: Diary Entry 167
Dear diary, she started and then thought, how long has that phrase been around? OK then, dear journal or whatever.
She wrote: Today (Saturday) started out with a beautiful blue sky with lots of those puffy white clouds. The kind of day that brings on feelings of hope and wonder. God, that sounds so hokey. But it really did. Bob suggested going on a picnic down by River Bend park, one of my favorite places in the whole world. The leaf creatures came to visit us. How rare and wonderful to receiver their blessing.
Date: August 10, 2010
Words: 17
Title: Green Fruit
Green blueberries taste horrible, but the taste of green papaya, now that’s something to look forward to.
Comment: Two days today since I missed yesterday.
--------------------------------------
Story: 243
Date: August 9, 2010
Words: 94
Title: Diary Entry 167
Dear diary, she started and then thought, how long has that phrase been around? OK then, dear journal or whatever.
She wrote: Today (Saturday) started out with a beautiful blue sky with lots of those puffy white clouds. The kind of day that brings on feelings of hope and wonder. God, that sounds so hokey. But it really did. Bob suggested going on a picnic down by River Bend park, one of my favorite places in the whole world. The leaf creatures came to visit us. How rare and wonderful to receiver their blessing.
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love it !
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