A flash fiction, is fiction, written quickly, on the fly or, in the moment for a writing sprint exercise. I’m currently taking part if the NaNoWriMo, a yearly competition for novel writers to get to a goal of fifty thousand words ~ done in one month. It’s a fund raiser for literacy. In my spare time, I write novels. I’ve only published two of them but it’s great practice and a good cause.
The Light Life, when organized is a bi-monthly contribution to TPPP. I thought it would be fun to add some flash writing here. A writing sprint is a great way to get into flow. Not everyone is a writer while certainly, not everyone wants to be a novel writer. That’s not the point of the exercise though.
A flash dash is a way for a person to stay focused on their flow of ideas in a stream of consciousness which in turn, allows them to articulate and clarify how their brain works. It’s a way for students to engage in the material they are learning and, like a sprint training session in sports, a way for athletes to build skill.
Practice Practice Practice
All exercise when crafted to suit the needs of the athlete, engages that muscle memory to become accustomed to working out. Once saturated with ease, the individual can then, crank it up to go a bit further, then further still. They become attuned with their mind/body connection. That movement memory becomes a part of who they are. They are changing their brains to become the person they want to be.
Visualizations can help us adapt ourselves to the ultimate alignment between who we want to become and who we are. Then, when engaged, our bodies just know what to do. Be it sitting for hours in a writing session or training for a marathon.
Be You, The Brain Will Adjust
When Oscar Wilde said, “Be you, the world will adjust” he was speaking of how others perceive us. The work we are all doing today offers a deeper insight. When we train our brains toward an accomplishment, then set our minds to achieving that goal; we are working on ourselves, for ourselves.
I wrote novels as a way of building up my writing skills for when the dissertation, in it’s hard qualitative science came along. Somewhere along the way, I decided I really liked writing more than teaching and then, as life went by, I let both go. Today, I’m picking up the writing again. At one time, I could easily write up to five thousand words a day in a single sitting. I have to rebuild that focus to accomplish my goals.
The novel will be far from perfect. That’s what edits are for. The flow, or stream of consciousness in my INFP brain however, will build up concentration muscles so that my flash dash toward a smaller, more manageable sprint, will one day become my marathon.
We become what we focus on.
In Peace and Light, I’ve got to dash. I have some word counts to crush.
KH
Author: Karen Henry has a masters in community psychology and an advanced graduate certificate in mental health counseling. She is the author of Indelible Women and the ReWrite series. She’s a private practitioner and researcher in the United States. Henry Healing dot com is her calling card.