A snow day is the perfect excuse to stay indoors and catch up on some writing.

Having a snow day, it seems, is no excuse for not doing any work and my middle daughter’s school gave her enough to do to last at least a week (not sure how long they think they’ll be closed for!).

Anyway, one of her tasks was to write a 100 word story. It had to be EXACTLY 100 words, no more, no less and I thought, now there’s a challenge I’d like to have a go at myself.

Who could possibly fail to be inspired by that?

I used to do a lot of writing challenges to stretch myself. They’re fun to do, but I often find I’m so busy I don’t get time to do them anymore. What better excuse than a snow day to give this a go.

Here’s what I came up with:

Goodbye, Kitchen, always warm and cosy, filled with delicious smells – fresh bread, apple pie… Mother. There she is, hunched over the stove. Except she’s not here anymore. There’s only me left and it’s time I moved on too. Time to let this house go: allow it to breathe with life once more.
I watch as they step into their new home, excited, filled with hope. Children laughing, they run upstairs, straight through me. I don’t want them to feel my presence, so I’ll just fade away into the shadows, leave them in peace whilst I go in search of mine.

It’s not a lot to play with is it? This piece was 139 words originally and I kept editing it down until I eventually got the exact number.

I’ve been in a non-writing hiatus lately, with too many other things going on to be able to focus on any of my own fiction work. I really miss it and this was the ideal challenge to get me thinking about my writing again.

What would your 100 word story be?