I've blogged about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) quite a bit before. Dan Wells, author of I Am Not A Serial Killer, has adapted it to his own challenge, which I think is ideal.

He's termed it NaShoStoMo - National Short Story Month. And it's not particularly national - as far as I know, it's just him - but it's great practise for a writer. It's very simple: every day of the month, he writes a complete short story. They're tiny - a minimum of 200 words, but they can be longer. They must be complete, with a beginning, middle and end. Like NaNoWriMo, they don't necessarily have to be any good. The point is to practise the art of storytelling, rather than writing. They're different disciplines - one is about constructing sentences, the other is about constructing emotion and story - and you need both.

Now I'll admit, this isn't something that fits into my life right now - I have several projects on the go that need to take precedence. But I'll definitely be saving this idea for the future (probably in an adulterated form - 200 is a little short for me, I'd rather have at least 500 words.). I think it would be especially good if you're feeling blocked on unsure of what to write.

It doesn't have to be one story a day - if you're interested, but not a prolific writer or have a very busy schedule, make it two a week for ten weeks or something similar. Just like Nano, it's entire what you make out of it.