Reflections On Shutting Up And Writing

This was a pretty interesting experience for me. As I said at the onset, I am a huge planner. The last time I did creative fiction on the fly, I was in college, and I was being forced to do it because of due dates. It was pretty fun and pretty exciting to be doing it again. (Though it speaks much that I only did it because I made it a public commitment that I felt I had to stick to.)

I was most pleased with it for two main reasons. The first is that it was so natural for me. I really thought that all of the non-fiction that I have read and written would have atrophied my creative muscles. But that didn't happen. I fell right into it and it came as naturally as it did on my best days at Cortland.

The second reason is that I ended up being more creative than I expected. On the first night, I wrote that story. The basic idea came to me earlier that day, but as always, at least 50% of it came to me as I wrote it (and that story may have been as high as 80%). Originally, I was expecting to write seven stand-alone stories about anything, anyone, anywhere. But as I wrote the first story, I thought that the stone would make for an interesting framing device. The stone would be a key element that linked all the stories. And of course, as the week progressed, it ended up not being so much the stone as the pond and the park that was the link. And on the final night, it occurred to me that wrapping up with the first characters we met and abstractly connecting all the stories through the single action of this one person was the perfect wrap-up.

If I were to list one more reason to be happy, it is the comment of my writing colleague. When I was three stories in, I told her that I was doing creative fiction and she went and read the stories I had up. Her very first comment was, "I want more of your flash fiction. I think you should do it for the whole month." That is a hell of a compliment for me, and I admit that I am tempted to make this a more regular thing.

Like all of my posts, these are first drafts. I write them and I publish them. Revising and editing would only happen if I planned to publish a collection of flash fiction. I recognize that this is not the best work ever, but I am happy of it. And I am happy I did it.

National Novel Writing Month may be the motivation some people use to put pen on paper, and that is totally fine. But if it's not your thing, that's fine. Try doing Personal Flash Fiction Writing Week. Or maybe even try Household Academic Essay Day.

In theory, I am currently in full steam on Kevin Bahler Cheff Salad Writing Life. I had somewhat of a late start, but I think it'll have a good end, whenever it may be.