The joys of writing short

Last night I wrote a story. Really. A five-page short story. I've not been much of a short story person. I tend to think in larger chunks. I want to include lots of explanation. But obviously, if you want to enter a short story contest, and it requires a story that is 500 to 1,000 words long, you need to tighten it up a bit. So I wrote a story about characters I've had for a while. It's actually a scene from the backstory of one of my main characters in my book. It needs polishing and it's still a couple hundred words too long, but I was proud of myself for sitting down and writing it. It's called Chocolate Pudding.

I think one benefit of writing scenes like the one I wrote last night, is that I get a clearer idea of characters I'm working with. It's also good writing practice. And who knows, it may be useful in a longer story someday.