Floating Flinders

15 minute stories

When I write in my diary, I can express my quietest thoughts and my most embarrassing secrets - but only I will ever read it. Only I will ever give myself feedback. And only I will be my own critic.

When I started this blog, I thought of it as a way to express myself to an audience that is not only me, myself, and I. I am not expecting any real conversations with real people to come from this exercise. What I am actually hoping for instead, is a way to open myself up without exposing myself.

Being a written blog, writing is the skill that I want to practice here especially. That is why I decided to interrupt my self-reflection with regular writing exercises that should mainly be fun, while magically improving my writing.

Being a depressed person, who knows “well-rested” and “full of energy” only from fairy tales and video games, I don't want to set the bar too high. The exercises should be fun, short, and easy. So easy in fact, that I will be able to follow through with them even if I am in a depressive episode1. The only problem is: my normal state of mind is a depressive episode.

So I got an idea how to approach this puzzle: with 15 minute stories. I am a vivid dreamer and often remember small parts of my dreams. That is why I will simply take that as the basis for writing short stories. The twist: writing must not take more than fifteen minutes. It doesn't matter if the story is witty or thought through. The goal is simply to write something, edit it as little as my perfectionist mind allows, and then publish it.

Let's see what the future will bring. Let's hope it brings interesting dreams.

  1. For people who don't know what depression “feels” like, this may be a bit confusing. Think of it like that: a depressive episode is more like an episode of Game of Thrones where they kill off your favorite character, and less like an episode of your favorite show where they don't kill off your favorite character. Given, of course, that you are not into masochism and murder. Also, think of fifty days instead of fifty minutes.↩

#15 minute stories #writing