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, September 23, 2010
Story: 288
Words: 97
Title: The Crutch
The first thing you saw when you walked into Mike’s house was a crutch hanging on the wall. When asked, he was proud to tell its story:
“One day I was huntin’ the ridge. I came upon a place where I could sit and watch the stream below for deer to come drink. Well, I dowsed off. All of a sudden there was this bang! and I jolted up. I fell off that ridge and broke my leg. That taught me to keep the safety on when I was sleepin’. And so the reminder on the wall”
Words: 97
Title: The Crutch
The first thing you saw when you walked into Mike’s house was a crutch hanging on the wall. When asked, he was proud to tell its story:
“One day I was huntin’ the ridge. I came upon a place where I could sit and watch the stream below for deer to come drink. Well, I dowsed off. All of a sudden there was this bang! and I jolted up. I fell off that ridge and broke my leg. That taught me to keep the safety on when I was sleepin’. And so the reminder on the wall”
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