He sat staring at the screen.
He’d been there, scrolling up and down for some time, reading his snippets, small drafts; a collection of ideas. They were all workable, forming a basis for a short story. Every fragment listed had been given a temporary title. Each had its merits. A value already dictated by the virtue of recording them. Some pieces contain only a dozen words, others, the best part of a hundred. He scrolled again. This time noting the number of items. There seemed to be so many. The list he’d created to capture these thoughts was one that never stopped growing, with more being added while fewer were taken and written up, formatted and stored in a folder ready for publication on his website.
Using his well-practiced culling system throughout the many pages, he’d highlighted those of particular interest. Ones that could most easily be fleshed out to create a story that contained between 150 and 300 words. Although sometimes more and sometimes less, this was his goal. He had based his objective on the idea that clear English can be read at a rate of around 160 words per minute, thus providing something that can be digested in a couple of minutes.
Reducing the images to show 10 pages across the screen, he scanned for those that were highlighted and made a pencilled note of their titles. He had done this so many times as part of what he called his writing for pleasure; never tiring of the cyclic nature of the process. He had seven items on his notepad. Where would he go?
There was the case of the magic item being bought at a jumble sale, a detective’s reputation that was enhanced by deceit, a puppet in a stage performance that used a magic gesture to cast a spell, a backup plan of poisoning by soup, the blind and the mute that confronted an ugly gorgon, a fairy godmother being rebuffed or the strange fate of a man who loved taking selfies…
He stretched before ticking the soup.
He just loved fiction!
