Still writing - words, not code

I shipped off three short stories today to various on-line publishers. Two stories under 1,000 words, so they are really short-shorts or "flash fiction", and one longer. We will see what comes of them.

Ray Bradbury has stated, both in print and during lectures, that a goal should be one short story per week. He posits that, after a year, a writer will have 50 short stories written and that it will be impossible to have 50 bad ones.

In the act of writing is writing done. "En gerundio" as the Spanish say.

I cannot promise, myself I mean - I promise no one else anything, to write a short story a week. I have enough difficulty meeting the deadlines for my writing course. But, interestingly enough, ideas seem to generate other ideas and, as I write the stories flowing from some ideas, others surface.

I am reading a series of stories by Roddy Doyle, of "The Commitments" fame. His most recent book, "The Deportees: and Other Stories", is a set of collections of related stories, each 800 words or less. They were written as articles for a publication in Ireland and deal with the strains of incorporating the influx of immigrants into modern Ireland - and all that flows from that.

The 800 word limit provided the author with a challenge, one he meets with great style.

And Dublin fairly hops off the page at you. What more could you ask?