30 days of Flash

November is NaNoWriMo month when many writers set themselves the challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel. I actually did this (and met the target) back in 2011, but swore NEVER AGAIN for various reasons. There seems to be more and more alternative November challenges popping up: a poem a day, 50,000 words but all on short stories etc. One that caught my interest is on Facebook: Flash Nano 2016, where a group of writes have set out to write one flash story a day.
October turned into a writing fast for me, not by design, yet somehow I slipped into a limbo state as I waited for feedback on my crime novel. I'd planned to start other projects and simply failed to get anything off the ground. On 1 November I was determined to write something. ANYTHING. I strapped myself down and managed a new 500 word story. The next day was my monthly goal setting session with writing chum Wendy and I had to come up with a November goal - particularly since I'd failed to meet October's target. Foolishly I made a snap decision and told her I would join the Flash nano challenge and write a new flash story every day: 30 days of Flash!
'So,' said Wendy, 'you've had a complete block on ideas for October and now you're going to need 30 different ideas - one a day - to meet this challenge?' (OK, she may have been a little blunter than this in reality).
'Yes,' I replied, beaming like a madwoman. 'It's going to be fun!'
And it has been tremendous fun. It's only day 7 of the challenge, but I have written a unique new story every day so far. I'm treating this as an opportunity to try out genres I never usually write ie horror, scifi etc. I'm also experimenting with word count from 50 up to 500. On the plus side I should end up with 30 new pieces which I could submit or perhaps adapt into longer stories. The ambitious side of me is already planning a new challenge: to place all 30 pieces. I may not confess that one to Wendy ...
If you fancy writing some Flash and are wondering about opportunities for submissions then here's a short list of some of my favourites - all FREE (there are hundreds more & competitions too if you have the time to search them out):

Blink-Ink - 50 words
Paragraph Planet - 75 word stories
Readers' Digest 100 Word story - closes 20 Feb 2017
Spelk - up to 500 words, submissions open again mid November
Smoke Long Quarterly - up to 1,000 words
Jellyfish Review - up to 1,000 words

Watch out for National Flash Fiction Day in 2017 which runs competitions and opportunities for publication. Left is the 2016 anthology A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed, which includes 2 of my flash stories ...