Buy Some MiniPrints

You only have a little time left to buy yourself MiniPrints. For the first time in a decade, my photographer friend Clayton Cubitt is selling his amazing, eye-popping work online. I ordered several myself and can't wait to display them in my home office to inspire me.

[Clayton Cubitt]

How to Write Every Day

Yesterday, I finished a self-created project: "30 Days of Fiction." The rules I made were simple: one story a day, 15 minutes, 100 words. I'd been inspired by a similar exercise I'd undertaken at a yoga studio: pay $158, go to yoga every day for 30 days, get a free T-shirt. I hadn't been writing as much fiction as I had been years ago, and I wanted to get back in the habit. But I kept tripping on my own feet, getting bogged down in whether or not it was good enough. This exercise, I figured, would shift my focus from quality to quantity, and, in the end, I hoped, trick my brain back into focusing on quality over quantity, and, it seemed, it worked.

Focus on what you really want

One challenge I have writing fiction without a deadline is that I overly focus on whether or not it's "good." These days, I'm more interested in does it make me happy than does it make someone else happy. Having been a freelance writer for many years, I've become overly concerned with anticipating someone else's needs versus figuring out what I need. This project was a great way for me to decide what I wanted to say and go ahead and say it. "Every Freaking Day," about a tiny tall child whose parents are conjoined twins, was a pleasure to write, and I can guarantee you that no one was going to pay me to write it.

Time is of the essence

Even the best athletes can choke. There simply isn't time to do that in 15 minutes. When I started the project, I was worried I wouldn't be able to think of and write a story in 15 minutes, so I would sometimes think of a story idea ahead of time. I thought that was cheating, so I stopped doing it. The story of a couple who see the world upside down, "Bending Over Backwards," which I like a lot and which others seemed to like a lot, took 15 minutes and 100 words.

Get in touch with your wu wei

A few weeks ago, I read "A Meditation on the Art of Not Trying," which is a must for anyone who tackles a "30 Days of ___" endeavor. I believe I was already familiar with the concept but had forgotten about it. From the article: "He calls it the paradox of wu wei, the Chinese term for 'effortless action.' Pronounced 'ooo-way,' it has similarities to the concept of flow, that state of effortless performance sought by athletes, but it applies to a lot more than sports." When I stopped trying so hard, the stories flowed better. I wrote "Balance Sheets" after reading about wu wei. I wrote that story of an accountant who has suicidal tendencies empty-headed, I guess you could say. I believe this type of writing allows the creativity to emerge from a deeper pit than the dull ranting of your conscious mind.

What're you trending

I noticed a few common themes in my work as I progressed: marriage, technology, writing. My favorites include "Couples' Road Trip," which is about a married couple who take a meandering and tempestuous road trip, and "Praying for Rust," which is probably my favorite story in the whole project and about a robot baby that gets adopted and is unwanted. Know your pastures, and you can graze therein.

Experiment or perish

Writers who have been writing a long time understand that sometimes it's hard to reinvent the wheel in words. I definitely wanted to experiment in this process, and I did. I tried all-caps ("I Believe in Drugs," starring a depressed blogger), no-caps and no punctuation ("I Am Myself Where I Am Not," featuring a strangely lonely businessman), and weird authoritarianism ("The Remanders," in which technology overrides the body). Experimenting at 100 words or less is easy because if you don't like it, you can try something else tomorrow.

Get visually inspired

Someone asked me if I found the image and then wrote the text or wrote the text and then found the image. In almost all cases, I wrote the text and then found the image. One exception is "Send Help," my shortest piece, which is about a woman who's gone insane or something like it. I made the image that I paired with it maybe six to eight years ago as part of a comic I was doing, and I came across it again the other day. Either way, the relationship between the visual and the written is symbiotic. Sometimes, I loved the relationship between the two -- for example: "Evolution," which is about the power a dog feels when its master picks up its poop.

Tolerate imperfection

Not every story was great. I based "All Their Glowing Faces" on something that really happened (a walk on a beach at sunset), and it's a bit corny and lacking in imagination. And "The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants" is little more than a protracted dick joke about a male porn star who can't get it up anymore.

Your excuses are your weaknesses

The fact of the matter is that anyone can do this, of course. I get it: you have kids, you have a job, you're depressed, you're busy, you're not sure you can do it, you don't think you should bother with it, and no one cares anyway, amirite? But if you have 15 minutes and an iota of willpower you can do this project. It wasn't that hard. It gave me greater confidence. And that was worth it. That was worth 15 minutes of my time every day. To do what I wanted. It's worth your time. To do what you want.

[30 Days of Fiction]

30 Days of Fiction, Day #30: I Made Her a Love Machine

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)

After she left me, I went in the garage and gathered together a series of spare parts: a broken muffler, the faded keys of a vintage typewriter, a rag dipped in motor oil. For years, I worked on the machine, adding and subtracting items, dumpster diving to make ends meet. I had no time for a job. A decade passed. One day, I finished. That afternoon, I presented it to her: a device that embedded my words on her body like some kind of spoken tattoo. She tinkered with it for hours, adjusting the lettering, bleeding out around the sentences.

Time: 13 minutes

Word count: 100 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #29: The Heart Wants What It Wants

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)

The male porn star stared at his penis. It resembled a pin cushion. Too many Caverject injections. His penis stared back at him, annoyed and defiant. Somewhere along the way, he had lost control over his erection. The unblinking eye of the assaulted penis gored a hole right through him.

Time: 2 minutes

Word count: 73 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #28: I Believe in Drugs

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)

I TOLD EVERYONE I KNEW THAT I WOULD BLOG EVERY DAY BUT I BECAME TERRIBLY DEPRESSED AND SO I WENT TO THE DOCTOR WHO PRESCRIBED ME BLAÜG WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO REMEDY THIS DISEASE BUT CAUSED MY SCALP TO FORM A RASH AND LEFT ME UNABLE TO BATHE OR BRUSH MY HAIR OR TEETH FOR DAYS AT A TIME AND WHEN I LOOKED INTO THE MIRROR THE MIDDLE INDENTED AND MY FACE CONCAVED

Time: 4 minutes

Word count: 73 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #27: Praying for Rust

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)

We bought a robot child. It was inconsolable. It wanted to go back to its factory. We grew tired of its pleading. We left it outside and the rats ravaged it. We brought it back inside and stayed awake all night because of the sound of its jaw clacking. We were ashamed of our actions and dedicated ourselves to aggressive expressions of physical affection. Over time, it lost its sheen and retreated to the back of a closet. Years later, we saw it on TV, selling widgets. We were embarrassed and changed the channel.

Time: 15 minutes

Word count: 94 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #26: In the Wake

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)

She walked into a cloud of cologne left behind by the gangly teenage boy walking in front of her. When she was in high school a couple of decades ago, the boys didn't wear cologne. They smelled like testosterone, nut funk, date rape. She had been raped once, sort of, at 16. Today, they called it grey rape. She shrugged her shoulders and wondered if the boy was a virgin or not. He smelled like deranged opportunity, chemical factories, bad sex realized. She bent down and let the dog off its chain.

Time: 13 minutes

Word count: 92 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #25: The Blackest List

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

Marrying the producer was a terrible mistake, the screenwriter decided, wiping the baby's ass. The baby kicked and peed, fussing and rashy. The screenwriter could hear the producer in the kitchen, her strident voice screaming at someone about something. She was a harpy of the highest order, the gnat in his brain. She seemed to have a keen sense of understanding when his brain wanted to form a thought. She wanted to interrupt it. Her heels clicked toward him down the hallway.

Time: 5 minutes

Word count: 82 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #24: Balance Sheets

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

I've been practicing since childhood, making paper chain razor blades, fashioning shoelaces into nooses, drowning myself in public swimming pools. For Halloween: I was Plath (my head in an Easy-Bake Oven), I was Rothko (my arms dripping blood), I was Cobain (my face shattered). Today, I focus on my career as an accountant and remind myself that tomorrow is a new day.

Time: 12 minutes

Word count: 62 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #23: I Can See Forever From Here

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

She wanted a house, so he found four leftover toilet paper tubes and an old shoebox. He taped the tubes to the top of the box. He went on a walk, collecting small sticks and large leaves. Back at home, he weaved them into walls. For the roof, he removed the shirt from his back, cut out a piece of it, and sewed the canopy over the tubes and the walls. He skinned a baby rabbit and used it as a throw for the matchbox bed. When she got home, he invited her inside their tiny life together. 

Time: 5 minutes

Word count: 98 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #22: Evolution

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

The only time the dog ever felt powerful was when it was relieving itself: the leash dangling loosely in the human's hand, the people pushing past on the busy sidewalk, the excrement steaming on the pavement. The human put the bag on its hand like a mitt and bent down to pick up the mess. The dog stepped away from the feces and waited, looking around, eager to go.

Time: 15 minutes

Word count: 69 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #21: All That Cremains

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

Every year on the dead father's birthday, the alive daughter pulled the dead father's ashes out of storage, dug out a spoonful of the dead father's ashes, and ate them.

Time: 1 minute

Word count: 30

30 Days of Fiction, Day #20: Unburdened

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

The couple felt burdened. Together, they decided to unburdened themselves. The first thing they did was to sell the house. It had been causing their spines to bend from the weight. They took up residence in a park. Next, they began to divest themselves of their limbs, which seemed unwieldy and sometimes ached. Finally, they rolled around together as torsos and shed their clothes, feeling the grass underneath their belly buttons and holding hands with their eyes.

Time: 2 minutes

Word count: 77

30 Days of Fiction, Day #19: If Only These Hands Could Talk

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

WANTED: Writer's block. Poor personal judgement led me to surgically implant my eyes in my fingertips, resulting in overwhelming visions of giant letters on a near constant basis (despite blank upper-face). Immediately require shoebox-sized case of writer's block not weighing over three pounds (I'm only five-two). Payment: negotiable. (Twenty-somethings need not apply.)

Time: 4 minutes

Word count: 52

30 Days of Fiction, Day #18: All Their Glowing Faces

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

I don't have long to live, so I went for a walk along the beach at sunset. When I turned around to walk back, I noticed all the other women who had come to watch the sunset were sitting on the benches and staring at their phones. By then, it was dark, and their faces were glowing from the blue light emitted by the screens in front of them. Finally, I saw a woman walking in the opposite direction who didn't have a phone. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" I cried. "It sure is!" she replied.

Time: 5 minutes

Word count: 95

30 Days of Fiction, Day #17: You Get Email

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

Kept every one of your emails. Printed all of them. Bound them into a book. Read them every night. Cried remembering. Got mad forgetting. Ate pages I didn't like. Read the scraps in the toilet. Turned two you sent me on a Tuesday into paper planes and tossed them out the window. Bled on one after an accident from a razor. Years later, the place flooded, and the first thing I looked for was the book of our life together told through your emails. Found it swollen and ruined, floating in the bathroom, the ink having fled the crime scene.

Time: 11 minutes

Word count: 100

30 Days of Fiction, Day #16: I Am Myself Where I Am Not

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

as far as i am concerned i am my best self in flight particularly when i am flying in business class or first class virtually the same other than they treat you better in the latter and warmer nuts and a bit more leg room the point being the moment you open the window shade to the annoyance of everyone else who is sleeping there is the wintry tundra 30,000 miles below you uninhabitable and unentertaining the closest experience i have found in this world of finding myself in it

Time: 12 minutes

Word count: 90

30 Days of Fiction, Day #15: Bending Over Backwards

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

"I'm coming," she said, even though she wasn't. With her hands on her pelvis and her torso bent backwards, she could see the moon that was full yesterday breaking through the clouds. "I see a dolphin," he said, speaking from somewhere behind her. Without standing up, she turned herself around in the sand so she was facing the ocean. It was dark out. Upside down, she couldn't see anything that looked like a dolphin. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. Next to her, the husband bent himself backwards, and they watched the waves crash across the sky.

Time: 15 minutes

Word count: 100

30 Days of Fiction, Day #14: The Remanders

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

The national epidemic of physiological downloads has resulted in a unilateral destabilization of individual identities that has not been seen since the previous century. Citizens who are unable to maintain facial coherence for the mandated period will be required to report to the nearest urban radicalization camp by end of day. Failure to report will result in fines, arrest, and incarceration without the possibility of release. Willing remanders will be outfitted with new identity scripts and reassigned to diversified productivity sites for rehabilitation and training before release.

Time: 15 minutes

Word count: 87