Flash Fiction February – Day Seven

A while back some of you may remember that I got a little burned out on the whole writing “thing”. I went through some things that made me reevaluate what I wanted out of my life as a writer and for the space of about a month I did almost no writing at all.

I’ve been slowly coming back from that, but here at the end of the first week of Flash Fiction February I’m finally starting to remember that there really can be joy in sitting down to write every day.

Not that every day has produced some spectacularly brilliant work of fiction, but the beauty of Flash Fiction February is that if today’s work stinks, that stench doesn’t necessarily have to carry over to tomorrow. When I was a kid my mom basically forced me to sit down and watch Anne of Green Gables and in that movie there’s a line that’s stuck with me: “Tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes in it.” For me that’s basically the spirit of Flash Fiction February summed up in a single sentence.

So far I’ve only missed one day of writing, but that was because I was engrossed in the big game (not the Super Bowl mind you; me and the kids had a wicked round of Uno going on Sunday night.) As to the writing I have done, I have to say that overall I’m pleased, not only with the general quality of my output, but also in the fact that writing a different story every day is forcing me to try new things, exercise different narrative techniques, try out variations in my writing voice.

There’s still a lot of writing left to do, but I’m feeling good about the rest of the month. Here’s wishing the rest of you a happy February of writing too.