Oh, look what I found

This is so much fun! 🤩

Hey Friend 👋 ☺️

How’s it going, how’ve you been?

Loaded questions, I know.

So, I found this website last week—50-Word Stories—and it's exactly what it sounds like: complete stories told in exactly fifty words. Not about fifty, not roughly fifty, but precisely fifty.

As with any other form of fiction, a 50-word story should have a beginning and an end, a plot and character development (even if they are only implied), and a theme, meaning, or purpose of some sort. Many 50-word stories are built around twists or climactic moments.

—Tim Sevenhuysen, 50-Word Stories

There's something deliciously obsessive about that kind of precision, like building one of those tiny ships in a bottle, but with words.

I'm going to try writing fifty of these in fifty days. Each Thursday, I'll share my current favorites. Here's the first batch. Tell me what you think.

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Genie

I had three wishes.

I wished for Love. I found her. Perfect.

I wished for Happiness. So happy. So effortless.

Third, I wished she wasn’t married, that her children adored me, that her husband would disappear, and that she wouldn’t get sick.

What I wouldn’t give for one more wish.

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On the house

The first few take the edge off. Then a couple more to relax. After two hours, you’re the life of the party—a regular comedian. After sunset, you love everyone. The fireworks set you off. Then, you create some of your own. Tempers flare. Punches thrown.

Come on, Dad. Let's go.

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Lost my appetite

We had this thing. You cashed my paychecks—but left me lunch money every day: a ten, two fives, maybe a handful of singles.

This morning at 5:00 am, no cash. Just your purse, sitting open on the counter, with a receipt from The Airport Hilton dated last night.

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That’s deep

“I ain’t cheatin,” she said. “I love being loved. Just not by you.”

We were laying sewer pipe when Wayne showed up—saved her like a goddam angel.

If it weren’t for Wayne, Sheila would be 6 feet under.

Well, twenty-four foot six inches at a 1% slope, to be exact.

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Whoa 🤯

Those got dark, didn’t they? Yikes!

Writing these is like trying to fold an origami crane while wearing mittens. It's frustrating, impossible, and completely addictive.

What I’m most surprised at is how quickly the ideas come. What also surprises me though, is how dark those ideas have been.

But honestly, the best part is the feeling I get from starting and finishing a complete story every day. That, to me, is simply magical.

If you’d like to try it yourself, this word counter tool is a great way to check your work as you write.

Talk to you soon.

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I love you guys ❤️‍🔥

-Paul