Here's my writing update for the summer of 2023: I've written a TON of micro stories, but I've written very little else.
What else should I be writing, you might ask? Well for one, I set out in January of 2023 to finish a very long (over 275,000 words) fan fiction story called Nerima All-Stars. I've been working on this for years - the original opening scenes were written maybe around 1999 and read for writer's night, and then shoved into a corner of my hard drive for many years. But I set out several years ago to "finish" my story, which has expanded exponentially and which I largely have not shown to anyone because I want to finish it first. I have too many fan fiction stories that I've started and never finished.
For two, I have my Grandpa Anarchy stories. I set out to write a series of short stories around 2021 that together told a larger story. These became my "Just One Punch" collection or "Book 13" collection of Grandpa Anarchy short stories - but I was not really satisfied with the direction the stories were going, and sometime in 2021 I stopped working on them so much, and in 2022 I did not get a lot of writing done. I want to go back and rework all of these stories, but it's another big project that I keep putting off.
In the meantime, I began writing micro fiction stories on May 1st 2023, and so far this has been going very well for me. On the one hand, I've written a LOT of stories. On the other hand, it amounts to not actually that many words written, since each story is between 70 and 90 words long. My limit is 500 characters for a Mastodon Toot, and usually I aim for about 480 characters or so in order to be able to add a tag at the end like #microfiction. I cross-post to Tumblr (which allows tags to be added very easily) and to Hive Social. I have some followers on Hive, and a hit for me there is 10 or 12 likes. A hit on Mastodon is at least 50 likes and my best stories have been over 100 likes. I don't know what a hit is on Tumblr because I get 1 or 2 likes a week there.
I'm going to post my master list of micro stories below. This list does not include any "prompt" stories - prompt stories are written and immediately published based on a word or picture prompt. I know of at least two people doing science fiction visual (picture) prompts on Mastodon, and sometimes I respond to these. I know of at least three word prompts that I've been responding to - in fact since early July I've been trying to respond to every one of these. There's a writer named Tanweer Dar who does a one-word #mastoprompt every day. There's another writer/poet named Faerie (on Mastodon at least) who posts a #micropromt word every day. And there's a largely French group of writers on Mastodon who do a #writever word-a-day challenge - they usually post all the word for the month in one single post, like so:
They do this in French of course, but also they publish an English version, and at least two of the writers I follow post a story in both French and English. I might be the only other English writer responding to these prompts currently (that I've noticed at least).
What all this means is that since July I've been trying to post three extra micro stories every day. So far so good! So in addition to having written 165 micro stories, I've written an additional 167 "prompt" stories. Which... has been somewhat preventing me from writing a new non-prompt story every day, but I'd written myself so far ahead that for the moment this isn't a problem.
I originally was posting these to mastodon.social (if I remember correctly) but it shut down in June, so on May 25 I switched to mastodon.art. This means that all of the stories I posted before May 25 are no longer on the internet. I was thinking I would repost them at some point, but I might wait half a year or a full year to do it.
So that's the state of my writing - over 300 micro stories of 70-90 words, and very little else written in the last 4 months. Here's my list of non-prompt stories written and posted:
written story posted #likes
001 050123 my turn 050123
002 050223 delivery 050223
003 050223 hero 050523
004 050223 more creative 050923
005 050323 abyss gazing 050423
006 050323 castle in the sky 050723
007 050323 domestic hero 051123
008 050323 frog 050323
009 050323 infinite lives 051323
010 050323 magical girl 050623
011 050323 memes 051923
012 050323 multi level 051423
013 050323 not whats for dinner 051523
014 050323 quesadilla wizard 050823
015 050423 secret society 051623
016 050523 influencer 051723
017 050523 nostradamus x 051823
018 050523 sword in stone 082023
019 050623 shy god 052123
020 050723 oh snap 061123
021 050823 puppy love 052223
022 050823 back in time 051223
023 050823 creatuib debate 051023
024 050923 garlic chicken 052323
025 051023 sacred toast 052523
026 051223 trapped in time 062223
027 051223 drunk in time 052423
028 051323 historical document 052823
029 051423 dark green woods 052723
030 051623 riddle of the sphinx 052623
031 051623 cookie biscuit 053023
032 051623 silly king/mocking the king 061423
033 051723 bring your cucumber 061223
034 051723 chocolate cake 061823
035 051923 a late start
036 052023 big reveal 053123
037 052123 fish nazis (superior friend) 060623
038 052123 one trick
039 052123 say my name 060323
040 052323 near death (bistro on styx) 060123
041 052323 pocket wizard 081023
042 052323 witch 072623
043 052423 clickbait 060223
044 052423 raven 052523
045 052523 big freeze 061323
046 052523 new world 060723
047 052623 treacle wars 060923
048 052723 noise in the walls 052923
049 052823 hoard 062523
050 052823 sound system 061523
051 052823 stories
052 052923 black water 070623
053 052923 lesbos - week in Mytilene 061723
054 053023 black knight inc 060823
055 053023 energy being 080923
056 053123 burning bush 081223
057 053123 dark void 062023
058 053123 retired god 062123
059 053123 trap door 062923
(59 stories in May)
060 060123 bus stop 070223
061 060123 let there be light 060523
062 060123 magic beans 060423
063 060123 monster rental 062723
064 060123 mysterious tales 061023
065 060223 AITA 062823
066 060223 romantic moon 063023
067 060323 story pill 061623
068 060423 master chef 080823
069 060523 creepy goth girl 070723
070 060523 otherworld bazaar
071 060523 pigomancy/divination 070323
072 060623 put on the dress 070923
073 060623 space marine 073123
074 060723 bloom and doom 062623
075 060723 strange fruit 071623
076 060823 fires burn (published 060823 ???)
077 060923 departure 062423
078 061123 justice warrior 071423
079 061223 golden binoculars 061923
080 061223 time machine 071323
081 061323 strange women 070423
082 061323 the librarian 070123
083 061423 worker bee 080723
084 061523 moo! 071223
085 061623 junk fairy 071523
086 061623 zombie 073023
087 061723 resurrection
088 061923 going woke 062323
089 062023 sleek siler sting ray
090 062223 cabbie 071723
091 062223 profanity 072523
092 062223 stagecoach/shotgun 071923
093 062423 eternal youth 072823
094 062423 legend has it 072923
095 062523 deterrent 072123
096 062523 volcano theme 081123
097 062623 exposure 072223
098 062623 gateway
099 062723 patsys pizza/future pizza 080323
100 062823 tooth fairy
101 062923 offering 071123
(42 stories in June)
102 070123 boat smash/sense of porpoise 070823
103 070123 cheese
104 070123 deleted world
105 070123 sea altar 071023
106 070123 submersible 070123
107 070223 city of books
108 070223 daddy watching
109 070223 ghost marriage
110 070223 pretty dress 080123
111 070223 wardrobe malfunction
112 070423 hellbird 070523
113 070423 lost things 071823
114 070523 neutral meeting
115 070623 jump the shark
116 070623 mirkgloom forest
117 070723 gaia prime
118 070723 too many books
119 070923 crop circles 081323
120 071123 apocalypse sentence
121 071123 paradise
122 071123 worlds away
123 071223 the ending
124 071323 spicy sandwich
125 071423 demon troubles 072023
126 071523 coffee story 080623
127 071523 imagination
128 071523 shipwrecks of death 072323
129 071623 book of hate
130 071623 statistical proof
131 071923 gateway of worlds 072723
132 071923 quicksand
133 071923 weather control
134 072023 hellsite 072423
135 072223 bath bomb
136 072223 legal matters
137 072223 megalodon
138 072323 quips
139 072423 sightless 080523
140 072523 for the birds
141 072623 discombobulated
142 072623 ex hellbird 080423
143 072823 anchorage 072823
144 072923 absinthe
145 072923 time travel party
146 073023 a visit from death
147 073023 death fairy
148 073023 spilt milk
149 073023 wise owl
150 073123 armageddon
151 073123 leviathan
(50 stories in July)
152 080123 ghost animals 080223
153 080223 ghost hunter 080223
154 080523 impossible exploration
155 080623 brass raven
156 080623 selkies lament
157 080623 wicked piper
158 080623 worship
159 080723 alien discs
160 080723 desire to read
161 080723 fairy godmother
162 080823 fearocious
163 080823 seven seas
164 080823 alien discs
165 080923 out of this world
165 081123 lavender strudel
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