The last five days I have been doing #VSS365 which was a completely new and random hashtag I had seen until New Year’s Eve. I decided last minute that this would be a fun little challenge to present myself with as the new year began.
#VSS365 stands for Very Short Story 365, in which case, the name speaks for itself. We all know that Twitter only allows 140 characters. I did not know that this would be plenty to show a snippet of a scene or to at least think of an attention-grabbing scenario.
My first #VSS365 tweet was for the prompt #eat, which I had no problem with. I wrote about devouring pineapple and chicken pizza and how the date my character was with rolled their eyes. Pineapple pizza gets so much hate. I am 100% on the pineapple bandwagon. The latest was for #swing in which I described a character’s life “swinging out of control” as she spray-painted her ex-boyfriend’s car. Not very original but I didn’t want to talk about swing sets or swing dancing.
So far, the tweet I had to think about most was #knee because I couldn’t figure out a non-religious or non-sexual connotation for someone being on their knees unless they were falling to their knees. My character was bringing people to their knees because she was going to follow the monster under the bed.
I enjoy #VSS365 because it gives me something to think about that isn’t my current work in progress or work in general. It doesn’t take longer than a few minutes to come up with something and by no means does anyone expect it to be perfect. I’ve only been on Twitter since August and I only use it for an outlet for my writing. I am new to this whole social media hashtag following. For my first time taking on a Twitter challenge, I am not disappointed.
I enjoy reading tweets that other people have thought up for #VSS365 and I am trying to show as much appreciation as possible. I have to be careful since it would be detrimental to spend all day on twitter knowing I have other writing to critique, my own writing to write and a completely unrelated full-time job. I will be continuing with #VSS365. Maybe I will think of a new plot for a story through these random, short thoughts.
Does anyone else participate in #VSS365 or other hashtags challenges/games? I want to know what creative outlets I am missing out on.
To Keep Learning, Always 