A writing experiment

Recently I've been musing on the way I write short stories. Once upon a time, I'd start a story as soon as an idea occurred to me. This resulted in many unfinished short stories languishing on my hard drive, so it seemed that a different approach was needed. I began thinking longer and harder about stories before I started to write them, making notes, mapping out a plan (not an outline, never an outline!). It soon became apparent that there were fewer unfinished stories. I still didn't always finish them, but the percentages were much better.

However, over the course of the past five years, I've written five novels for NaNoWriMo, mostly flying by the seat of the proverbial pants, with minimal planning and maximum trust that "it will all work out in the end." And it has, often to my complete surprise and delight.

Soooooo, now I'm thinking, why not short stories? Is it possible that NaNoWriMo has helped me train my brain to a different sort of writing process, and that what works with novels might also work with short stories? If I simply start, trust, and go with the flow, might I be more likely now to end up with a finished story?

Tonight I started a new story to test this premise. It's one of the ideas that came to me while we were on vacation, but I don't have it worked out in any kind of detail--none at all, in fact. All I have is an opening scene and a very general idea of the society in which it takes place. My plan is to write 500 words a day for hopefully about ten days, at which time I should have a finished first draft. What will happen? Stay tuned...