Valley of the Muse

The prompt for September 2009 is licorice.

Previous prompts can be found here.

If you’d like to share your story, art, photography, craft, etc., based on this prompt, email me at miriam@valleyofthemuse.com and I’ll link to your creation.

There’s something wonderfully satisfying about creating a complete story while only using 100 words. When well executed, they can be beautiful in their simplicity.

I frequently have an image in my head and I’ve found that limiting myself to 100 words is a good way to get that image onto paper (especially since I don’t draw well). It’s also a way of disciplining myself to stick to the image – the description, the senses, and the point of the interaction itself – without going off on a tangent. By sticking to 100 words (no more and no less) I’m forced to edit out unnecessary words or add more descriptors, and I find this makes my writing much more crisp and precise than other forms of writing. It also means that I’m focusing on the writing itself, rather than worrying about how its going to come out.

A variation of this is completed stories using the 140 character limit on twitter. There are several twitter-based e-zines such as “Thaumatrope” (scifi/fantasy/horror) and “Tweet the Meat” (horror). I haven’t tried this out yet myself, but I’m planning on trying it out some time this month.

Do you write drabbles? Do you write tweet-fic? Do you follow a blog or website that posts well written short fiction? Leave a link!

EDIT: I was pretty pleased with myself for making the post exactly 200 words, but then I found a great blog that uses a similar concept. “Six Sentences” publishes short stories composed of, you guessed it, six sentences. Looks like all genres are welcome.

A fantastic speech by author Elizabeth Gilbert on the creative process and nurturing artists. If you’ve ever struggled with being creative you should watch this.

Very few speeches are this touching and meaningful.

Every month, I’ll post a new prompt as inspiration for a short story that will be posted here in this blog sometime during the month.

The prompt for August 09 is “steam powered”.

Feel free to join in and be sure to link me to your story, art, photography, etc. that was inspired by the prompt.