My best story?

Many years ago, I had an idea and hammered out a story of maybe 200 words.  I don’t remember exactly how I felt about it at the time, but I’m sure I thought it was a very good little story.  I think part of why I wrote it was I needed more stories for my first collection, A Man of Few Words, and it was a perfect one to include.  In the years since then, I’ll occasionally dig it out and reread it, and at some point, I started thinking of it as my best story.  I’ve written longer stories, and stories with more meat to them, but this one has like the most impact per word. 

For years, I’ve taken some pride in it; it is my best story after all.  But lately, I’ve started to wonder: did I already peak with my writing?  I like to think that my writing has gotten better over the years, but then why hasn’t a new best story appeared?  Or is it just my best flash fiction story, and I should try to figure out what my best short story is and when I wrote it?  Or should I stop worrying about such things and just write? 

Writing Newsletter Third Quarter 2025

 

This quarter, I wrote “Too Stupid” and “Sacrifices Must Be Made” as part of my Monthly Stories.  The reason there’s only two stories, is I didn’t post one in September.  I started two or three stories, but didn’t finish any because of burnout, and probably a few other reasons.  But the most recent story I started – which still doesn’t have a title – I’m 99.9% certain I’ll finish it up and post it as my October story.  My Ko-fi post for this quarter was my story “Perchance to Dream.” On one of my blogs, I posted the stories “Bated Breath” and “The Fall,” as well as reposted the story “Star-Spangled Ploy.” I also posted the poem “Nighttime Vision” on my Mastodon profile.

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If I counted correctly, this quarter I posted one new microfiction as well as reposted one.  I also posted two new haiku, and reposted three.  The microfictions can be found on my Untitled Works Page, and the haikus on my Haiku Page.  The low numbers are a result of general writing burnout, as well as 114 other projects in the garden and around the house.  Not to mention all the videos, and shows, and videos about the shows that somebody has to watch.

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I’ve been meaning to polish up a story and post it on Draft2Digital, but hopefully things will slow down enough in this next quarter that I’ll finally get around to it.

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Image from Pixabay.