A Story A Week

‘Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.’
— Ray Bradbury

I posted that quote on Twitter today, and a large number of my followers have shared it, Liked it, engaged in conversation about it, and have even said they are going to do it. How about it? What a brilliant challenge – to sit down and write one story a week for a year. It’s absolutely possible – if we let go of our limiting thoughts about how our writing ‘should’ be, and instead let the words flow and just find out what happens.bradbury-ray-3

What if we don’t know what to write about? Try opening a book at random, putting your finger on a sentence, and start writing a story about whatever that sentence said. Of course, this will work better if you choose an interesting book, as opposed to a technical manual or some such! You could choose a work by Shakespeare, a book of poetry, a sacred text, a favorite novel. Or you could check out my Twitter feed @write4wellbeing – I post lots of interesting quotes and links to my Facebook posts, as well as retweeting fascinating stuff. I have recently discovered a wonderful Twitter account @PastPostcard, which posts fragments of messages from real postcards – lots of possibilities for inspiration there.

Ray Bradbury certainly knew how to write short stories – he wrote every day of his life since the age of 12. He published nearly 600 short stories, and that’s not counting his novels, poems, essays, and plays. I think he sounds like a writer from whom we could take some encouragement.

So, what do you say? Anyone up for a story a week challenge? This time next year, you’ll have 52 stories!

Podcast Interview

podcastPODCAST INTERVIEW FOR WRITING FOR WELLBEING! I’ve been talking with radio presenter Steven Hesse about – oh, everything! Mindfulness, and poetry, and recovering from depression, and benefits of Writing for Wellbeing, and going to Mongolia, and Horatius at the Bridge, and cherry Coke. Sound interesting? Then have a listen – the interview starts at about 4:00:00, that is 4 minutes into the podcast. Click here: Laura’s podcast interview