Though some people have knocked out an entire short story in a single sitting, it’s more realistic to see writing a story not as an inspiration-fueled creative binge but as a multiweek project. It’s one you’re a lot likelier to finish if, rather than waiting for the muse, you create the possibility for inspiration by planning a time and setting up the circumstances that will allow you to write regularly. It also should be fun! The act of constructing plots, developing characters and creating dialogue can be challenging, even frustrating, but I never find it boring, and it just might allow you to escape from your daily life at the same time that you access the most imaginative parts of your own brain.
Here’s a one-month plan for completing your first short story.
But as I’ve aged, I’ve realised that career, and life, are never about climbing a ladder and breaking ceilings. Rather, they’re about making missteps and zigzagging as you take the brave, scary road to reinvention.
The Fogging is an intensely introspective debut inspired by Luke Horton’s experience with "fogging" — a routine spraying of pesticide to eradicate mosquitoes from beachside resorts. Horton calls the real-life incident a "scene from a horror movie", which compelled him to imagine it as a pivotal point in the decaying relationship of a couple on holiday.
They found a jar of freckle cream today
on an island in the South Pacific
and immediately assumed it was mine,