I have found a new favorite thing—along with all of my other new favorite things plus old favorite things. I have a lot of things, is what I’m saying. Anyway, THIS one has rejuvenated my writing life nearly as much as the Scott Writes Stuff stream, and, in fact, is something I discovered through him. Yay to one awesome thing feeding another!

There’s this newish digital flash-fiction magazine called Storyzine that comes out once a month. And every month, they give would-be-contributing writers a prompt to write from. The writers write a story about the prompt, less than 500 words (1,000 if you’re a Patreon subscriber), and submit it to them for review and potential acceptance into that month’s issue. If you are chosen, they’ll send your story through editorial review, you’ll make changes, and poof! A few weeks later, you are gifted with an email containing their magazine and your special little story tucked inside. Congratulations, you’re an author.

Now, I am absolutely LOVING this newfound monthly part of my writing process. Not only do I get to write something wholly outside of the “big, important novel,” but I get to go through the entire writing process to get used to how it works (submissions, editorial, etc.).

Best of all, it’s SUCH GREAT FUN writing things of different styles, and I’m getting to explore sides of my authorial self that I haven’t before. My first piece for them was drama/horror. I don’t usually go for horror, but there it was. My second was comedic slice-of-life story. I didn’t even know I could write comedy. Surprise!

When you’re working on a novel, that’s it. It’s such a long-form, long-term type of storytelling that you’re literally working on one plot, one set of characters, for months or years on end. It can get exhausting and tedious. But now, doing this tiny monthly deviation, I’m refreshed and ready to go on my next (or current) project.

Thanks, Storyzine! I’m building up a portfolio of fiction in the most delightful way possible.