Six Minute Story

RANDOM!

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:21:29 -0500

Yes. Six Minute Story now has random prompts (clicking will get you a random prompt, right this second).

And I fixed whatever was preventing Flickr prompts from loading properly.

Now, stop tumbling and get back to writing. Write on!

"Dream dreams, then write them. Aye, but live them first."

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 09:35:24 -0400

“Dream dreams,
then write them.
Aye, but live them first.”

- Samuel Eliot Morison (via 90years)

So this is fun

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 19:13:07 -0400

At the end of August, Six Minute Story broke through 25,000 visits from all you happy people. And those 25,000 visitors saw about 4 pages each: we’ve now had over 100,000 pageviews!

So that’s nice, considering I started this as a hobby site to help writers cure writer’s block!

Your stories are getting read. And that’s just increasing as time goes on, as you promote your stories and I add features to draw more people to your fiction.

So, cheers: here’s to all of us!

New Prompts For Ever

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 03:37:17 -0400

I pulled myself away from work for a few hours this weekend – just long enough to update the code behind Six Minute Story to ensure there will always be fresh prompts.

In the event I haven’t set a prompt for a particular day, the site will pull one of the most interesting photos from Flickr for your writing pleasure.

Hopefully if the photos are interesting on Flickr, they’ll be interesting to write stories about.

Now, back to work, and then on to your other feature requests (a way to see what prompts you’ve suggested, private stories) and some ideas of my own.

Oh! how I want to make this a video prompt.

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:35:40 -0400

Oh! how I want to make this a video prompt.

30 of the Harshest author-to-author insults

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:08:27 -0400

30 of the Harshest author-to-author insults:

(missing the myriads more)

Into a burning puddle of fire

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:52:00 -0400

Update: By speaking very softly and tempting them with Oreos, I was able to coax the servers back to their desks. They’re now humming along to a delightful mix of Bill Henderson and Count Basie.

In the midst of making some very minor upgrades to Six Minute Story tonight, the servers got confused and thought it was New Years. They consequently took off work and got serverly [sic] drunk.

We’ve put a support request in to our host’s wranglers, to sober up the servers.

We’ll make sure you’re the first to know when everything’s working again (within the next few hours).

Chuck Palahniuk on writing without "thought" verbs.

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:08:39 -0400

Chuck Palahniuk on writing without "thought" verbs.

darksilenceinsuburbia: Savignac.

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:49:01 -0400

darksilenceinsuburbia:

Savignac.

Photo

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:00:07 -0400

New way to earn reputation

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:44:53 -0500

If you’ve visited Six Minute Story today, you may have noticed some small changes.

The biggest change: you can now agree or disagree with comments other people make.

It’s basic at the moment: click agree or disagree. If you want to change your mind, click the other option.

This provides a new way to earn reputation (formerly called “karma”). If someone agrees with your comment, you’ll earn a reputation point. As the site grows, reputation will be increasingly useful to unlock features on Six Minute Story.

As always, I invite your comments. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook or the Feedback Forums.

Thanks for being a part of Six Minute Story. If you’re looking for something to do, read or write some stories now.

Broken Comments

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:23:00 -0500

I noticed today that comments were requiring two clicks to post. I’ve turned off the feature that was causing the bug and will sort it out in the next couple of days.

In the meantime comments are working again. Thanks for your patience. :)

"You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like..."

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 08:00:06 -0500

““You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.””

- Ray Bradbury via lovelyasadream (via quote-book)

How to edit your stories

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 06:06:00 -0500

There’s three tiny new features on Six Minute Story:

Tonight I made it a bit easier to browse through stories, by providing some buttons for timeframes. Click around – you’ll probably find something delicious.

I also added a new way to respond to stories: emotions.

Writers who have earned five karma can edit their stories. The hope is that you’ll edit for typos and finishing last sentences, rather than substantively changing the story.

At the moment you can only receive karma when someone favorites your story, so the threshold is set low. In the future there will be many more ways to earn karma and the threshold will increase.

I hope these features add to your enjoyment and encourage your writing a little bit more.

As always, you can contact us with feedback on Twitter, Facebook or the Feedback Forums.

"Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy..."

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:00:07 -0500

“Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.”

- Pablo Picasso

Thanks to trellbrennan and arsvitaest . (via luzfosca)

Henri Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy One of the most mysterious...

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 05:19:01 -0500

Henri Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy

One of the most mysterious paintings I’ve ever seen. It’s today’s prompt.

Photo

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:00:07 -0500

"Victor Hugo would write naked and tell his valet to hide his clothes so that he’d be unable to go..."

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:52:52 -0500

“Victor Hugo would write naked and tell his valet to hide his clothes so that he’d be unable to go outside when he was supposed to be writing.”

- What we can learn from procrastination : The New Yorker (via Instapaper)

- Albert Anker I love stories read aloud (reading and...

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:30:37 -0500

- Albert Anker

I love stories read aloud (reading and listening). Librivox is a group of volunteers working to convert every public domain text to audio. Listen to my first contribution (Section 9) and then volunteer yourself. It’s a great way to pass the time.

Happy weekend, bookworms and bibliophiles.

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:49:00 -0500

Happy weekend, bookworms and bibliophiles.