Today’s song happens to be one I don’t care for, “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I find it ironic that the singer belts out these lyrics about how important it is to be a simple man to soaring, anthem-like music, and that over-serious, too sincere framing drives me a little nuts. I was hoping that sense of irony might make it to my story, but no. A sad mother-daughter tale with a not-so-simple man at the heart of it. Meh. Next.
Working Title: Fooling Around
1st Sentence: I never knew my father.
Favorite Sentence: The sun was down completely now but there was a high, bright moon that shone on the water burbling like it came up from a split in the earth.
Word Length: 595
Photo by Andrew King, March 2010.
At Ogunquit again, this time with the husband and a Jacuzzi, for a long weekend in the last blush of summer. As I write, I’m sipping a “mocha choca,” an espresso-blasted hot cocoa prepared lovingly for me by a very nice young woman with an accent I can’t place at the Cafe Amore, one of my favorite places in the village. I’ll remember this when I’m trudging to the gym in thigh-high snow this winter. For now, I drink my buzzy cocoa and post Day 2 of my song stories: Today’s shorty was inspired by one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters, Tracy Chapman, singing the sad, sweet “Give Me One Reason.” This shorty could not be more different from that song in tone, yet I wrote it while grooving to Tracy on a loop, so go figure.
Today I start a week of shorties inspired by songs. To select my songs I created a Pandora radio station and spent about 20 minutes entering singers and bands I like and giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to songs the site selected for me. Then I saved the station and went on with other things. Last night I went back to the station and wrote down the titles and artists of the first 7 songs Pandora gave me, whether I liked them or not. I bought the songs from iTunes and loaded them onto my iPod. Today I began my series by listening to “Little Bitty Pretty One” by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. Because this song is impossible to hear without dancing, I got up and danced like a fool for a good 20 minutes while replaying the song. Then I sat down at my computer, turned the volume down, and continued to replay the song while I wrote.
A friend recently expressed confusion (and a little contempt?!) that I reward Daily Shorty milestones with virtual treats. Occasionally the treat is something I acquired and photographed before inhaling it but typically, no, these treats come from Wikimedia Commons or friends kind enough to remember me and snap a photo before inhaling their own delights. In my defense I can only say that I love looking at these pictures. And that if I I ate all of the treats decorating this site I’d have to exercise twice as much as I do already, and these old knees can’t take it. So enjoy with me this gorgeous fruit tart, which caps a week of shorties inspired by poems posted at 
This one took forever to write. Might be a keeper with a good revision but I was glad to be done with it for now, after a long night. I took my inspiration from one specific and very simple image in the poem 
Ahh, another excuse to post a picture of my darling Maria. Bad lighting and apologies for the husband’s foot, but you can see that she is ridiculously adorable. Today’s shorty was inspired by my current favorite of the terrific poems I’ve been pulling from 
I could fill this whole box with complaints about the day’s shorty, which I worked very hard on and yet it refused to be anything but a pretty, preening piece of crap. Instead I will congratulate myself for finishing my 4th month of the Daily Shorty challenge! That’s a THIRD of my year, folks! Have a red velvet cupcake on me to celebrate. The wonderful poem that inspired today’s shorty is 
I finally picked up the craft book Rules of Thumb, edited by 
What I can say so far about using poems as prompts: I’m producing stories I feel I would never have come up with on my own. That was only rarely true when I used place and photos as inspiration. I wonder why? The day’s shorty was inspired by the poem 
Two shorties inspired by poems, five to go. I was very happy with this story and worked hard to find the right ending, but it never came. Right now I’m thinking the last third of this one is likely to be replaced in revision. The poem that inspired this shorty is 
My weeks at Daily Shorty start on Tuesdays. I just finished a week of stories inspired by place, and that followed a week of stories inspired by photos. Now poetry. Many thanks to the folks at 
THAT is a chocolate soufflé! Congrats to me, to me, to me, for finishing off my 17th week of the Daily Shorty Challenge! And I can’t let another August 27 post go by without wishing a big, fat, happy wedding anniversary to Pat and me! Best decision I ever made, Babe. And I’m looking forward to that steak dinner Wednesday night….
I spent the day in Boston with my friend Mark. I took lots of pictures and tried to go thoughtful once in a while, but I never did take a few minutes out of our traipsing even to take notes for a story. Instead I carried my notebook to (an early) bed, reviewed my photos, and closed my eyes and waited…. As it happens, I have no photo to document the moment in our day that inspired this story. Instead I’ve posted here the favorite of my pictures. The shorty was inspired by the rest we took in the Public Garden, admiring the pretty lake and glimpsing from afar a big rock with… was that a mermaid??
A mocha, a cushy couch. Memories inspired by the man-sandles I saw on the guy sitting catty-corner to me. Oh, how my father would despise those shoes, I thought. And I was off and running.
Frontier is a wonderful example of how the old mill buildings so prevalent in Maine can be re-purposed. A combination restaurant-theater-gallery-performance center, Mainers have treasured this place since it opened in Brunswick not long after I moved to the state in summer 2006. I sat in their small theater scribbling ideas in my notebook for about 15 minutes before the showing of the film my husband and I came to see, “Queen of Versailles.” (I give the documentary a thumbs up but I have no idea why reviewers found it hilarious. It’s fascinating, disturbing, and very sad. I think I laughed three times.) I came back to my notes hours later to work my impressions into a shorty. Love the idea for it, but I’ll need good luck with revision to accomplish what I hoped.
Okay, I wrote today’s shorty before I got to the gym but that’s because I woke up thinking “gym” and I’m so familiar with the place—and I’ve already written several shorties there—that my mind started working on the sights and sounds right away. Within minutes I was scribbling.
I’m finding that places are not inspiring stories as well as photos but that is likely at least partly due to the fact that having to go somewhere adds a task to my day that I’m having trouble fitting in. Each of these first 3 days of the series I’ve left for my writing prompt-place no earlier than 4:00 in the afternoon. I do like today’s shorty, especially that I kept it so brief. But I don’t love it.
Dear Home Depot: What story will you bring me? One about a husband who’s getting a bit too handy around the house, of course. I had to fight hard for this one—lots of starts and stops. It’s okay, probably not a lot of potential for being publishable. Onward.
One of the ways I keep my energy going for the Daily Shorty challenge is to celebrate every milestone. I didn’t have room for this photo yesterday and I won’t when I write up today’s story post, so here’s my pat on the back for completing my 16th week on August 20! This apricot-blackberry tart, purchased at Forage Market in downtown Lewiston, Maine, is my celebration treat. I don’t often get to eat the real treat photographed for these virtual celebrations, but I ate this one and it was DELICIOUS.
Starting a week of shorties inspired by place. Today I sat on a bench on the quad of Bates College. Something about the peace (the students aren’t here yet) made me write something dark and violent. DO NOT LIKE. This one will live only on my hard drive but I’ll put it in a cell so it won’t hurt any of the others who are imprisoned there.
Saying goodbye to Week 16, but I’ll have to delay my virtual treat by one day in favor of posting the picture I used for today’s shorty. This story came to me very quickly and whole, so was fun and easy to write. And I like it. Overall I consider my week of photo prompts very successful. The stories came out odd but I like that. I sometimes had trouble going deep but don’t I always. I do think starting with the photo stripped a layer of effort or pressure from the shorty mission. To sum: I will do this again.
Another really tough one and again, doesn’t match up to my vision but there’s hope for when I can come back to it.
I really like my vision for this but it didn’t come out so well. Hopefully I can ramp it up in revision.
Had to fight hard for this one but wound up with something I really enjoy.
Three starts today to get a shorty. And this is the third in my experimental “photo series” and today I’m really pleased with what I wrote. If forced to think like a critic I’m not sure how highly I’d rate this story but I went deep today, something I haven’t been able to do lately. You know when you’ve written something that matters. Not all stories that matter will be publishable, but in the end “publishable” is someone else’s lookout.
Well, here’s what I can say so far about this experiment with photo prompts: Both yesterday and today I did come up with a shorty pretty quickly and I wrote each with relative speed and ease. They are both odd, and I like that. But both lack… depth and feeling. Of course it’s not like I never have that problem otherwise. And maybe the photo series shorties will get better. On to the next!
In the last few weeks I’ve been finding ways to defeat an increasing sense of mental fatigue. More on some of the tricks I’ve developed another time, but here’s my latest: I’ve brainstormed a list of types of prompts I can use to inspire shorties. On a given week I will use a particular kind of prompt every day. I fear that my mind will not love this kind of constraint and the overall quality of the shorties will suffer. But for now I want to see if using prompts reduces at least one kind of mental work by relieving me of the burden of creating a story idea out of nothing and everything. My Daily Shorty weeks start on Tuesday so today I began a week-long story series using 7 selected photos from my recent trip to Ogunquit, Maine.
I keep wondering when I’m going to run out of easy days. More, please. For now, you’re welcome to one of these amazing macaroons. I’ll have the other as a reward for completing Week 15. Mmmm. I love coconut.
I have to do more of this. Went looking on my hard drive for lost bits and pieces and found a nugget I wrote a year ago using an exercise provided by the fabulous 
Worked on this one a few times during the day, then saved the heavy hitting for late, when I knew I’d be sitting in an airport for a few hours, waiting for the husband’s always delayed plane. Might as well make being stuck in limbo work for me, right? A disappointing shorty, as it happens, but an efficient Claire. Next!
Jen: You said, “creamed corn, creamed corn, creamed corn.” I listened. Re the shorty, this a perfect example of a story I can’t imagine having written before this story-a-day experiment. Very little happens, it’s kind of sentimental, and it has a pleasant little ending. So… elaborate, snarky, slightly foul-mouthed Hallmark greeting card? Or small, worthy story about a quiet moment between a (snarky, slightly foul-mouthed) couple with a defiantly positive ending in a world clogged with disillusion? Probably the former. Either way, another day marked off and on to the next.
Daily Shorty 
