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, October 28, 2010
Story: 323
Date: October 28, 2010
Words: 77
Title: Memories of Earth
As he painted, the sun disappeared behind a distant ridge. It set just as fast as on Earth but it appeared smaller. Phobos rose quickly in the West and raced across the sky into the darkening night. He took a moment and imagined what it would be like if Earth’s moon moved that fast. It would be like some sort of weird acid-trip time speed up. He packed up to leave, sighed deeply, and thought of Earth.
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Story: 322
Date: October 27, 2010
Words: 27
Title: Mars Landscape
The colors that best illustrate the Martian landscape are rust with a blue-grey atmosphere. He sat in the Obs1 deck and tried to get the oils right.
Comment: Catching up.
Date: October 28, 2010
Words: 77
Title: Memories of Earth
As he painted, the sun disappeared behind a distant ridge. It set just as fast as on Earth but it appeared smaller. Phobos rose quickly in the West and raced across the sky into the darkening night. He took a moment and imagined what it would be like if Earth’s moon moved that fast. It would be like some sort of weird acid-trip time speed up. He packed up to leave, sighed deeply, and thought of Earth.
________________________________________
Story: 322
Date: October 27, 2010
Words: 27
Title: Mars Landscape
The colors that best illustrate the Martian landscape are rust with a blue-grey atmosphere. He sat in the Obs1 deck and tried to get the oils right.
Comment: Catching up.
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