If you’re a writer, or hoping to become one, then micro-fiction offers a way to practice your craft, find new readers and get ideas down on the page, fast and furious.

I’ve been experimenting with micro-fiction of late – and loving it.

Micro-fiction is a subset of flash fiction – which itself is normally defined as less than 1,000 words. Micro-fiction has no official definition, though it could be anything from 140 characters (for Twitter fiction) up to 100 words – or 250 words, or maybe even 500 words. Though that would really count as a magnum opus, the ‘War and Peace’ of micro-fiction.

Here why you should consider writing and reading micro-fiction:

1. It’s fast and fun

2. There are no rules (other than ‘keep it short’). This is the Wild West of storytelling.

3. It’s a great way to re-use ideas that came to nothing (or half a page of scribbled lines)

4. It’s easy to experiment

5. It hones story-telling

6. It provides ideal content for your author blog or website

7. It’s an easy and quick way for readers to get to know your style and get to like your stuff.

8. You can easily fit it in between other projects, to keep your creative juices flowing.

9. Some of your micro tales may become launchpads for bigger projects.

10. It could help you find your feet, or your writing voice, or your genre, or your passion, or your own style.

11. (Because all good lists go to eleven) There are markets out there – webzine and magazines publishing micro-fiction. You may not earn a fortune, or even get published. But you have nothing to lose except a little time.

Did you ever do something really bad? You can make up for it, that’s what I think. If I keep this foal alive against the odds, that’ll count for something. Won’t it? What else can I do?

I saved her from the river. She was washed away and struggling, her white nose bobbing downstream. I risked my life, waded in and grabbed her, got a kick from those long, boney legs but dragged her to the muddy bank all the same. She calmed down when I held out grass, took it right away. She looks half starved and she’s not alone.

I’ll help this foal. That’ll set things straight for me. Make amends, whatever. How was I to know? I hacked the site, but I didn’t meant to launch no missiles. They should have had safety, or security. It’s not my fault. Besides, I’ve suffered as much as anyone. I’ve no computers now, there’s no electricity, no one to talk to, no point in doing anything. Not much to eat. Even grass won’t grow, I’ve given her the last of it. Don’t know how she lived this long. This foal’s the first critter I’ve seen for weeks.

What do you feed a horse, if there’s no grass? All I’ve got is cans of meat and beans and stuff. A foal can’t eat that. Besides, I’m running low, and when it’s gone, what then?

I’ll keep the foal. That’s my good deed. No one can say I’m a bad person. No one can.

The man in the marketplace grinned, showing his blackened teeth. “Trust,” he urged in a drawl. “It’s good. No worries. You be happy. Pay now.” He held out his hand, expecting the gold. I needed the map, it was true. But this was a fake, I felt it in my bones. The man stepped closer, trying to impose his will, his arm around my shoulder. I shook it away. “Give money now,” the man said. His voice had become threatening, giving me no choice. I stuck my knife under his ribs, into his heart, took the map and ran.

The demons drove the people crazy, into deliriums and dreams, breaking apart the fabric of our world. Unseen, unknown, mysterious, they conquered without weapons, soldiers, spaceships or mercy.

“How was it done?” the king asked, and told the wise men to find the cause and cure.

A year later a man in a white coat visited the ruins of the palace. He found the king sitting alone, strumming on a broken lute. The king looked up, his eyes glazed as if drugged. “At last? Can you make me well?”

The sage took the instrument from the hands of the king and smashed it over his head, dislodging the crown.

“What’s the meaning?” blathered the king, though his guards were long gone and there was little he could do.

The wise man knelt and took his hand. “I meant no harm. I found them, creatures hidden in the songs. Lifeforms that are waveforms. Strange to tell. They burrow in your mind. Banish music, close your ears, forget all tunes.”

“I can’t,” the king wailed.

“I know,” the wise man said, “but do it, all the same.”

He got off the bus, shoulders hunched, head hung low, dazed as if in a dream. So many times he had pictured himself going home, to her. So many years, in that cell, his life stifled, waiting for liberation, day after day he had remembered her face, wondering.

There was a time when he told himself he was the real victim in all this, but no hero came to save him. In the end, he set out to save himself and disappeared, deep inside, looking for his true face. When he found nothing, he was free.

Would anyone recognise him? He shuffled along the street. Passers-by glanced his way but he knew none of them. On reaching the house, he paused. To knock, or walk away? He raised his hands, took one deep breath, sensing it inside his body, then rapped lightly on the wood.

Finally, the door opened. She stood there. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Everywhere,” he vowed, “I’ll take each path, cross every valley, climb the mountains, ford the streams. I’ll walk the Earth until I’ve seen it all.”

There was nowhere so humble, drab or indistinct that didn’t make the list. No street too dangerous for him, no bridge too far.

One day he passed a hermit sitting by a tree. “Where do you go?” the monk asked.

“I walk the world,” the man replied.

“Why?”

“What else is there to do?”

“Of course, I should have known.” The monk smiled in recognition, but frowned in sorrow as the man walked on.

As the ground rushed up to meet him, he grumbled his refrain: “Call me Monday. Everyone does.” If strangers asked why, he would mutter and look away, twitches and tics writhing on his face like a basket of snakes.

It began at school and stuck. “I don’t like Monday,” the gangs sang, every time he passed. But there were other names. His foster-parents called him “John”, and to the teachers he was “Taverner.” Clare, who didn’t have any other friends, called him “Johnie” and said it in a nice way.

“She likes me,” he told himself. “She’s the only one that does.”

She cried when she heard the news and felt alone.

Everyone was sleeping when the bad men came. My mother held me tight – so hard it hurt, but it did no good. The men knocked her down and dragged me away.

Did they kill her? Where was my father? Why we were there, so far from home? I’ll never know. Though I survived, made a life here from necessity. That’s what you do, when you have no choice, especially when you’re young.

If I had a wish, if they’re alive I’d let them know: I lived a life. And I was never lost.

There are many things we can learn from dogs, but perhaps chief is among is simply how to relax. Really, utterly, relax.

Summertime, sleeping