Writing Stories I Want to Read
Why I Started Writing the Canvas Sextet Series
By Miles White
I love to read, but the older I get, the less I read. The reasons are numerous — Internet distractions, too many books and too little time, busy with whatever it is I am doing at any given time. Still, I love to read when I have time to read, but let’s face it, how many books have you bought at the airport that are now lined up next to the toilet, unfinished. I dread starting a new novel because then I have to devote the time to finishing it and if I don’t finish it I feel guilty. I love Faulkner. I may not read him again in life and I feel bad about it. I don’t have Faulkner time anymore.
What I started doing was writing stories I liked to read but also enjoyed writing, one-page burners based on just a title. I made it fun. I asked people to send me a title and I would make a story out of it and the story would only be one single-spaced page in Word because one page is about my attention span these days. I discovered I could come up with better titles than I was getting so I started making up my own titles then writing stories for them. I found I loved to read these little one-page wonders; I gave them narrative arc, as much character development as I could, and some sense of denouement. And I tried to write them well. I also made them little killers — people die for no good reason, people screw up real bad, people get hurt, people kill people. Then I decided to write 100 of these stories. I started sending them to friends; they loved them; they wanted more.
Then I decided to write 300 stories. Then I decided to publish them on Amazon and the other e-book platforms in six collections of 50 stories each — the Canvas Sextet, because I look at the page as if it is a painter’s canvas, and I try to paint a picture. I hired a web whiz, set up a website, and published the first two volumes: Jesus Loves You But Not Today and Download the Moon. Then I finished the third collection, Zen Pussy Riot, and the fourth, All These Are My Tears. Not all the stories are great, but many of them are good; some of them are damned awesome. A few of them might be crappy but I am having fun and I give most of them away on sites like Medium. I love to go back and read them but I need to keep writing them to satisfy my love for reading them. I am writing stories I actually like and that I have time to read. Short. Sweet (or not). Deadly. It was Chinua Achebe who said “If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.” I have 100 stories to go. ###
