Since November 27, 2022 I’ve been participating in a writing challenge, which is called a very short story (tagged #vss365 on Twitter/X). The rules are to create a Twitter-length story using the prompt of the day. The website that hosted the challenged has ended, so if you want to participate you’ll need to search #vss365 on Twitter and find a recent post with the prompt.
The prompts often follow themes. One of the coolest ones used kennings, which are “round-about figures of speech”. My favorite is battle-sweat, a kenning for blood. A modern day kennings include fender-bender and tree hugger.
I started posting my stories on Twitter, but then just moved to writing them in a journal. If I miss a day or two, I use all the words combined in a story. As of today, I’ve been doing this for 508 days (not a true daily streak since I’ve missed days, but I always make up for it later). Not sure why I do it; at this point it is a habit and a different way to use my brain.
The word for today is #saga. Here is a very short story:
My morning commute is always a #saga; today was worse than usual. I was stuck behind a school bus with its stop sign out waiting for what felt like a long time. The child finally emerged from a house with breakfast in hand, struggling to put on a jacket. Life doesn’t get any easier, kid.