On the last day of September I decided, on something of a whim, that I would write and post a drabble (a short story of exactly one hundred words) every day. The game was to write one, from scratch, every day - so no stocking up at weekends, or when I had spare time.
As of October 31st, I can triumphantly say that I managed to do just that (click on #drabbletober22 to visit the tag’s page if you want to read them all). Here are some of the things I learned along the way.
100 Words A Day Isn’t Much
A drabble is a surprisingly small chunk of text. OK, so writing a story isn’t the same as writing one hundred words. As I said a while back, the key (for me) to writing drabbles is to write a still-short-but-longer-than-that story and then try and remove words until I hit the century.
However, it’s surprising how quickly a drabble can be turned out - and they can be fun and satisfying. Yay, I wrote and shared a story! Look at me doing all this writing! If you want to feel productive, drabbles is the way to go.
100 Words A Day Is A Lot
Some days I didn’t have any good ideas. Some days I ran out of time. Some days there was quite a lot of fighting with the unfamiliar mobile interface for posting to my blog, because I was trying to write a drabble from a train.
However, there is a lot to be said for the accountability of posting things publicly, and the desire to keep up the streak kept me at it. I’m proud to have posted thirty-one tiny stories, even if I’m aware that some of them are… less strong than others.
It is, of course, infuriating that the drabbles people have told me they liked have invariably been the ones on which I was able to spend a lot of thought and time.
100 Words A Day Isn’t Useful
A couple of people asked me if I knew many good markets for drabbles - to which the answer, sadly, is no. I’ve sent pieces to Drabble Harvest in the past, and others suggested Deadly Drabble Tuesdays or The Drabble. Venues like Briefly Zine or Interstellar Lit are not drabble-specific, but do take very short pieces.
However, the list is fairly short (do you know of others? let me know!) Of course, all my October drabbles are now out in the world, and thus unlikely to be eligible for submission to most markets.
I think it’s also fair to say that I have made comparatively little progress with any other writing projects during October. I have spent some time writing each and every day, but I don’t think it’s done much to nudge me towards an actual daily writing practice. I’m sure that writing tiny stories every day is a better practice than not writing at all, but in the grand scheme of things I could probably use my time more profitably.
100 Words A Day Is Great PractiCe
Yesterday evening, I noticed (just as I was going to bed) that the fabulous Weird Christmas flash fiction competition (which I won last year! you can read my story - and a bunch of other cool stuff - here!) was closing. Yesterday. I had somehow completely missed the announcement (in July!) of the deadline.
So, I set on and scribbled out a story in my head. Then I blurted out a first version into text form, ready to be trimmed down to the requisite 350 words.
The first draft came out as 282 words.
Now, I’m not saying I didn’t do a spot of editing. (Only a spot. Deadlines!) But I do remember, last year, fighting to get my story down under the word count. This year? No worries. 350 words? That’s loads.
100 Words A Day Drives Engagement
I only have the most basic of analytics set up on this site, but I note that this month I have had approximately four times as many visits as previous months. It’s almost like posting new content every day is a viable strategy for luring people to your site.
I was interested to note, though, that despite tweeting links to my stories every day, most of the tweets got no reactions at all, and very few of my site visitors came via Twitter. I suspect that most of the traffic was made up of a few supportive friends who rocked up to my blog every day looking for the most recent story. I have, however, had some fun conversations on Twitter about drabbles, and have even got to read a few other people’s tiny stories as a result.
Despite record numbers of visits to my site, however, I gained exactly zero new subscribers to my mailing list. Which was not an end in itself, of course. But had that been my motivation, the whole thing would be a definite failure.
100 Words A Day Leaves A Gap
A somewhat unexpected bonus is the surprising sense of space and time I’ve experienced since November 1st. I don’t have a deadline every day! I have an hour spare at the end of the evening, and I can spend it doing whatever I want!
I can get on with that big editing job! (Am I? No, of course not, I’m writing a blog post instead. The plan isn’t foolproof.)
I’ve accrued some ideas over the month; a few times I started something, decided it was just too big to fit into a drabble, and set it aside for another day. I’ve honed my pruning skills, which is always useful for those days when you see a call for 2K stories and have a perfect fit at 3.5K words.
I’ve actually… missed the story that I was getting cross with a month ago, because it wouldn’t do what I want. We’ve had some time apart, and I’m ready to get together again.
On the whole, I feel pretty positive about #drabbletober. I enjoyed it, and now I’m enjoying not doing it! Next year? Who knows!