I have just completed Flash Nano for the second year and loved it.

The Flash nano challenge is to write a flash fiction to a prompt every day of November. It is based upon the Nanowrimo November challenge which is about writing 50,000 words of a novel. I am sure there are more creative challenges like this, maybe there is a write a haiku every day in November, or sketch, paint, dance…the list of possibilities is endless.

There was no-one dangling a carrot to keep me writing a story every day in November, except something inside me wanted to and I’m trying to understand what that something was.

Some of the prompts were easy, an idea, a character and the ending flowed with little effort. Other days I’d stare at the prompt and think ‘eh?’ And yet I’d still write and once started an idea would spring up, or the story would change as it grew. Sometimes I added an extra challenge by limiting the number of words to 250 or even less.

Flash nano was stimulating, and satisfying, but I’d like to understand why I enjoy this type of challenge and the best way for me to understand something is to write about it.

Anticipation and Focus

I looked forward to hurrying to my hut and seeing the prompt. There was a bubble of anticipation in my throat and a buzz of excitement in my stomach as I scrolled down the email to read the day’s prompt.

There may have been a sharp intake of breath and a pause before I began typing, but the happy feeling persisted through the whole process of writing, editing, and polishing these tiny stories.

Sometimes I was so focused I didn’t hear the church bells tolling the passing of time and would be very surprised when I stopped to discover I’d been writing for two hours.

It turns out this is due to a chemical called acetylcholine which is produced by the brain when we turn our thoughts inward, reflect, or focus intensely on something. This is apparently the preferred chemical happiness of an introvert’s brain, no wonder I was happy.

Determination

There were three days when I was fighting a mother of a sinus headache. It was harder to find the motivation and focus, but I still wrote my stories. They may not be as good as the others, but they were written, and although I’d not been as happy writing them, I had a sense of pride that despite not feeling like doing anything I didn’t give up. Those stories can be edited and changed whenever I want to, and I probably will as I plan to put them together into a free eBook for my website subscribers.

I think this determination comes from not letting myself down, no-one else cared if I wrote a story or not, but I did.

It seems I am quite ambitious, even if it’s only in my head and for me.

Magic

There was a kind of magic and awe to the creation of these stories, and I’m a sucker for magic and awe. Each story was unthought of before that moment my brain processed the prompt and triggered my imagination. Each character didn’t exist until I brought them to life on the page. Through my imagination I immersed myself in the characters, their surroundings, and the situation as if they were real, as if I were the character experiencing their life.  

I used all my senses to understand and to express and create something from nothing and the deeper I dug the happier I was. Must have been that focus and inward thinking creating more of my happy chemical.

Happy, until I wrote the story based on an email subject line. I was so totally with this character and her values and when I wrote about the gift she received, I saw that gorgeous snout, fell in love with those starry eyes, heard its cute grunt and felt it’s weight in my arms. I had fallen so deep into the story for a while it was real.

I still ache for that moon pig. 

Trickery

There is a slight wickedness to the power of writing, and especially when writing a flash fiction, packing so much into so few words. I love the ability to trick a reader into believing one thing, but then throwing in a twist that has been hinted at and can be seen clearly once the ending has been read.

An evil streak in my personality maybe, but the sense of satisfaction when I managed to pull of a twisted tale flooded me with that happy chemical once again. Sorry readers, but I hope you enjoyed and forgave me, the breadcrumb clues were there, honest.

Comments

We all like positive feedback, it stimulates the production of dopamine and makes us feel proud, worthy, clever, and ultimately happy. And I received some great comments, people waiting for me to post the next story, praising my imagination, my story twists, the social situations I wrote about, and I was leaping from the rafters in delight and determined to keep up the standard of writing.

But one negative comment and my heart stuttered, my mood plummeted, and I wondered what I’d done wrong and why I was trying to do this stupid challenge anyway. One negative comment ‘what rubbish’ weighed on my mind more than the many positives. It haunted me through the night, hung around in the back of my mind, and froze my imagination. I asked what was rubbish, was it the grammar, the choice of subject matter, the writing? And I had no reply. It gnawed at my happiness, pulled me down.

I wonder if this high and then low was because introvert brains are not so good at coping with dopamine, we tend to become overstimulated and then crash down into fatigue and despair.

Eventually I deleted the comment and read all the positives again. I reminded myself that there will always be someone who doesn’t like my writing, and that’s okay, because I’m not writing for them.

However, I craved the positive comments and would hurry to read them, desperate for a little boost of author’s esteem, until it felt like an addiction, like I was writing only to get the comments and that wasn’t what this challenge was about. It was about writing a flash fiction every day for a month.

I was writing for me. Once I recognised this, I started to write for me again, and was back on track, enjoying every moment.

Other Writers

Once my story was finished for the day and posted for others to read, I enjoyed reading other writer’s interpretations of the prompts. Because the prompts were coordinated by an American, the prompts would arrive in my mailbox and on the fb page about four pm, I wrote my stories one day behind, as my morning writing hut time fits my life well. This meant I was careful to post my story and read other’s responses before four pm each day as I didn’t want to see the next prompt until I was ready to write. It’s funny because with my longer stories I like time for the ideas to grow and mature before I begin writing them, but with these I didn’t want time to think, just time to react and allow my subconscious to flow, to trust my imagination.

It never failed to amaze me how different each writer’s story was, even when the same slant was taken. I loved seeing through another’s eyes, experiencing someone else’s imaginative response, and noticing how a tightness, more showing rather than telling, character arcs and a complete story became stronger and more common as the month progressed. I chuckled, gasped, frowned and smiled while reading the short tales, and left comments which I hope boosted the author’s day too. And as reading is another trigger of the chemical acetylcholine I was basking in quiet, relaxed happiness.

I enjoyed the social support too. From a distance, it was non-threatening, and I felt as if I was part of something larger than me and my writing hut. I think being part of something larger is a human need and as for two weeks of this challenge I was home alone it filled this social hole that I often say I don’t need. But I do. Humans are inherently social creatures.

Completion

Every day when I posted the story onto the challenge site and then onto my author page on Facebook a wave of soft pride and satisfaction washed through me. There was that tiny dose of dopamine again stimulated by finishing a task. You’d have thought this would be a tsunami at the end of the month, but it was more like a summer swell for although I was pleased to have completed the challenge, I was tired and there were other writing tasks for me to do that had waited patiently in the wings all November.

Satisfaction and an almost sense of relief that it was over.

Now it’s over…

I have thirty flash fictions waiting to be reread, re-edited, changed when needed, or rewritten completely if I want to. Thirty creations to explore and enjoy. I’ve forgotten many of them, a problem when writing a new story every day, but I look forward to reading them and being surprised.

There are a couple which have the potential to grow into a short story, novella, or a novel if or when I decide to delve back into one of the tiny worlds I created in such a short space of time and a few words.

I have rekindled a good writing habit and taking the break from my other writing means I am keen to get back to editing and publishing more of my novels as well as tackling the first drafts of other stories I have ideas for and writing my blogs again.

I also have the added bonus of happiness washing through me when I walk towards my writing hut as my brain produces acetylcholine from habit and association.

How cool is that?

I am so lucky.