Practice makes perfect: Mental Weight-Lifting

I've been in the habit of writing weekly short stories 1,400-2,500 words in length. I originally planned on just doing it twice a month but I got hooked.

I highly recommend this practice to those that are actively trying to get published. I've maintained (with a few short stories directly related to my novel as intermission) it for about 15 weeks now.

For those interested in the stories themselves: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BwEIMf2d_7anLXA1YmtwanFTWVk/edit

How inspiring! Maybe I can try the same - how do you make enough time for writing these stories I wonder? And are you also busy writing a novel in the midst of this?

edited 13th Aug '12 6:28:49 AM by QQQQQ

It's because I'm writing a novel that makes it easy, in my opinion. The short stories allow me to develop concepts in the novel without conforming to the 'rules' of the novel. It's effectively brainstorming put on paper.

I find that with a solid theme the words just fall onto 'paper'. Frequently as long as I can give myself 2-3 hours I can get a pretty polished piece.

More importantly it allows me to always feel like I'm making progress on the novel even if I don't get any chapters / editing done on the novel itself. After all if I can make a self contained story in 1,400 to 2,400 words interesting it builds confidence in specific chapters. Failures? Learning experience.

That sounds like a very useful exercise! I might give it a shot.

Wait. Waaaiiiit.

Are you writing these 1.5-2.4k short stories WHILE writing the novel? Cause that's, like...

...hm. 200-300 extras words a day...

Anyways, kudos to you, this seems like a really good practice to adopt.