Who writes short shorts?

Well, I guess I do!

I seem to have been lured into a dragon’s lair…more specifically, a few weeks back I had a go at Flash Friday Fiction, which is mostly staffed by dragons, ably assisted by Rebekah Postupak and her band of judges (who may also engage in dragon maintenance, I’m not entirely sure).

This is the deal:

• A photo prompt related to this day in history
• A ‘dragon’s bidding’, e.g. ‘Include a wedding’
• 24 hours
• 150 words to fit it all in! (with a very generous 10-word leeway)

And a few months ago I thought 500 words wasn’t enough for a story.

I thought I was being so economical, and my first draft came in at around 220 words. Oops. Chop chop chop, slice slice slice, more feverish counting. I would have chewed my pencil if I hadn’t been writing on a tablet. Aaaaaaaand…submit, cross fingers, and wait for Sunday!

So, why engage in such stressful activity?

1. It’s fun! Honest, it really is!
2. You get to read the work of lots of awesome people. I could cite here, but there are so many of them – just go to the Flash Friday link above and have a read for yourself
3. You get feedback from the same awesome people
4. (This should probably be earlier in the list) It’s a great way of experimenting with topics and ideas and, as someone pretty new to writing fiction, I need the practice!

Last Friday was my fourth go, and I liked the prompt so much that I wrote two stories. Today I’ve sent in my first entry for Flash Frenzy at The Angry Hourglass. 

Do you think this could be habit-forming?

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 WARNING: You may in future be subjected to occasional airings of micro-flash fiction here. Feel free to blame Mark A. King (I generally do); it was his suggestion!

The featured image is Welcome the Dragon by Kenny Louie. It is shared under Creative Commons attribution 2.0 (generic)