I finally enjoyed two days of a little spark yesterday and the day before but today, sadly… no spark. I hope I have a really good week soon to make up for these late doldrums but who knows, maybe 9 months is the outer limit of how long I can write something every day and mine a little gold here and there. In any case, congratulations to me for completing my 9th month today! The treat in the picture is “artisanal nougat,” which looks like that Torrone candy I love to get at Christmas. I think a hunk like that is sufficient for celebrating another month. Excuse me while I don my dinner napkin. The day’s lackluster shorty was inspired by the lovely poem “Forecast” by Karin Gottshall, published at Crazyhorse Fall 2012. I found it at Poetry Daily. Here’s the first stanza as a teaser: I remember, before the snow started, / thinking I wish it would start. The sky darkened
Working Title: Snow Sculpture
1st Sentence: For going on five years, now, she would sculpt only with snow and only outdoors.
Favorite Sentence: She lumped, piled, packed, and patted into place a vision as it rose before her.
Word Length: 448
Photo by nonolilli 8/2012.
That’s more like it. Another shorty that doesn’t sing but it’s got potential, it’s about something real. After days of lackluster word-pushing, that’s what I need right now, a few pieces that remind me of why I write. Today’s piece was inspired by 
There is one good thing about the flu (and it’s certainly not worth it): Once on the road to recovery, everything you eat and drink is delicious, and everything you do is exciting because it’s so easy. Yesterday I straightened up the kitchen and felt incredibly happy that I had the energy to do it. I wanted to wash that dish—and I did! The day’s shorty isn’t great but it has a bit of spark and that’s enough for me right now. I’m going back to prompts this week and will be using the site 
And… um… good riddance. Thanks to my flu, definitely the worst week of the challenge. I wrote today’s shorty as a meditation on place that I hoped would help with another, long, unfinished story I’ve been revisiting. It helped in that now I know the longer story doesn’t need it. As for the photo, now that I’m recovering an appetite, I’m craving every food I’ve ever eaten and enjoyed, including junk food. For some reason today I am plagued by thoughts of Skittles.
I love it that the flu-stricken me really was trying to write well, despite knowing that I couldn’t. I remember noticing and accepting the total lack of creative interest in what I was doing. But the evidence is on the page: Throughout this shorty there are scratched-out phrases and sentences. So obviously I was still trying to uphold some kind of standard. My fever broke late the night I wrote this one, so this is the last shorty I wrote while seriously sick. As for the photo, I’m resorting again to photo therapy for my still-recovering self. One of the many things that makes me happy: fresh raspberries. Maine is justly known for blueberries but should be known for raspberries, too. But the summer feels awfully far away right now.
I remember working on this one. I would forget what I was writing literally while still in the middle of a sentence. There is evidence that I wanted to craft something good—a note partly down the first page in the margin reads, “Start here?” Oh, Honey. It doesn’t matter where you start this one.
My main concern since I turned this project into a year-long challenge has been that I’ll get very sick and find myself unable to keep up the challenge while ill. I’m writing this a week later than the date you see, now mostly recovered from a bout with the flu. I’m happy to report that I did, just barely, maintain the commitment. On my worst days I kept a spiral notebook in the bed with me and took advantage of the more lucid moments to scribble. Honestly, I did question my dedication to the challenge. I asked myself why I was insisting on writing stories while so sick, when clearly there was no hope for good work to come of it. What’s the point of that? Where’s the gain? I still have no good answer. But I did it.
Couldn’t focus. None of my usual tricks worked. Pulled something from my Idea File, finally, fleshed it out, made it as good as I could just to meet my requirements. And I began to suspect I had something worse than a cold. And yes, more photo therapy.
A very difficult day. Hugely fatigued, couldn’t focus, headache. The shorty I produced has potential, though. By bedtime I was cursing the nasty cold that had settled in (I’m writing this a week later). This photo has no bearing on the post, I just need cheering up.
I’m writing this day’s post a week later. When I can’t do a story post in the same day, I leave a line of notes in the story file (or on the notebook page) to remind myself of what I was thinking and feeling when I composed the draft. For this one I noted that I couldn’t focus and it took forever to pull something out. Part of the problem, I know now, was that I was coming down with the flu.
This raspberry tart looks almost unbearably wonderful. Faced with a shelf of those things I would eat them for every meal until they were gone, I think. Dream with me. And applause, applause for the completion of Week 38! On my last day of this week I used Leslie Anderson’s 
Coming to the end of my second week of stories prompted by Leslie Anderson paintings—just one more after this one. See the 
Using the 
Another day inspired by the Summer Stories Short Story Competition put together by the 
Maine writers, look sharp! The deadline is drawing near for the Summer Stories Short Story Competition put together by the 
Finally, a break! This one didn’t land in my lap whole but I got it in two reasonable sessions and even had time to polish it up a bit before evening fell. Very rare, these days. And goodbye to another week of this challenge! Celebrating with this picture of a “banana royale.” If it were real I could down it in about 2 minutes flat, I think.
Again, many false starts. Much gnashing of teeth. Finally, a decent little shorty. Awarding myself these tulips for all the recent especially hard work. Very tired.
Very nearly beaten by this one. Many false starts, much exhaustion, no direction, pure frustration. So I played free-association with a scene I didn’t know how to end… and then forced an ending. Done.
I woke up thinking morbid thoughts. So… morbid shorty.
Sometimes I just have to start with nothing. My mind roams and I type words or sentences and then delete them and type more and delete again and more and again until an image holds, for no reason I can divine, and I stop deleting as the sentences spin out into a larger whole.
I don’t think people threaten kids with what might appear on their Permanent Record anymore. But it was something I heard a lot growing up. Don’t even think of doing X or it’ll wind up on your Permanent Record! Strangely, this threat had teeth, at least for me. But I’ve always been a coward. Today’s shorty is another written in the form of a list of 7 things.
I neglected to celebrate the completion of Week 36 in January 7th’s story post below. Likewise, I began this week forgetting that I should use a writing prompt to keep up with my practice (for some time now) of alternating weeks using writing prompts with weeks of coming up with ideas entirely randomly. Well, that’s how it’s been, lately. I may have to accept that I’m not going to regain a normal-ish level of energy for the remainder of this challenge. Major mental fatigue has settled in and seems to abate somewhat for only a couple of days at a time. I do continue to write stories that surprise and delight me, at least one every week. How long can I go? I guess we’ll find out. For now enjoy with me this turtle fudge to celebrate another week of shorties. The day’s story was inspired by a conversation I had recently with a friend about fertility treatments.
Not the first time I’ve spun a story from my focus on one word and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Woke up this morning thinking too many things at once, which produced a few false starts. So I closed my eyes and said, “Silence, that’s what I need.” After a few minutes of a quiet mind I typed the word silence into my Word file. And the shorty was born. Almost more of a prose poem.
One of my favorite and really intense memories from very young childhood is of the occasional Sunday breakfast made up of fried salt herring, eggs, and biscuits. (Yes, probably that should be “salted” herring, but I remember that we never said it that way.) We didn’t have much money, so only rarely–after a good paycheck with overtime–did my father get that craving and drive out early on a Sunday to hit a local place that sold the fried salt herring. I have no idea how the rest of my family felt but I was always Daddy’s little girl, certainly with regard to food, and I remember practically vibrating in anticipation, waiting for his return. He’d come back with brown paper packages containing the just-fried fish. My mother would open the packets on the table, add freshly baked biscuits and scrambled eggs, and we’d be off and running, eating our food from the paper. Half-meal, half-sport. After a few false starts on a shorty, this memory came to me. I asked my husband, also raised in Virginia but by parents who are not native to the state, if he’d ever had this breakfast and he said no. I did a Google search for “salt herring breakfast” and every hit I got specifically for that phrase came from a Virginia diner or a Virginia Moose lodge or Ruritan club. I copied the menu item above from the 
Woke up thinking about aversion therapy and then I started laughing about how aversion therapy might be attempted for someone like poor Charlie Brown, who realizes with Lucy’s help in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” that he fears everything. Brought all this to the page and had fun with it.
This story was born because I woke up thinking about the words wholly, holy, and holey (hole-y), which got me thinking about how holiness is generally considered a plus but holeyness (hole-i-ness) not so much (although for some things, like Swiss cheese and colanders, a good thing). As for the shorty, still dark stuff but at least there’s a little word play in this one and I think this shorty might turn out to be a keeper.
It seems the fatigue is producing some pretty dark stuff and not with the usual relief of humor. I read the day’s shorty again just now and winced. Moving on to the next and hoping for light.
I’m writing and back-dating story posts now, and when I consult my notes to see what I was thinking when I wrote each day’s shorty, I mostly see “I’m tired.” Today’s shorty might or might not come good when I have a chance to go back to it, but anyway I’m grateful for it because my favorite sentence gives me an excuse to post a photo of potato chips. Mmmmm.
December kicked my Daily Shorty butt. I was in danger of shutting down multiple times, which is why I’m yet again backdating story posts. When I’m that fatigued, I can only keep up with the stories, and posts have to go by the wayside. Anyway, here’s to a more energetic 2013! Starting the year with a shorty about a topic alien to me: motherhood. I have been spared the duty of parsing mothering advice but I see my friends negotiating the deluge of shoulds coming from all quarters.
Daily Shorty 