If you’ve been a subscriber to this newsletter for a while, you may recall that I launched a Tiny Love Story (TLS) challenge in 2021 using Facebook Groups—and at least five of our 20 participants placed their stories (not bad odds!).

Let me pause here to explain what a TLS is. These charming New York Times’shorts open with a compelling hook, show the evolution of a love story, and end with a sort of “lightning bolt” that stays with the reader—all in 100 words or less. They also come packaged with an image that depicts the essence of the author’s tiny love story.

You’ll get a better sense of them if read a few stories from our TLS Challenge participants (you’ll have to scroll down for each of them):

The Life of a Tiny Love Story
I posted my first TLS attempt on our group Facebook page and submitted the story through the online portal in 2021 as outlined in The New York Times submission guidelines.

Nothing. Nada. For weeks. Then months. Then years.

And I didn’t follow up because, well, I didn’t want to be a nuisance. I wrote a few other TLSs in 2022 and 2023, but I never hit “submit” because I didn’t think any of them were on par with my first, which apparently didn’t measure up (rejection by non-response).

Then, I discovered that many of my friends, and some of the writers in my online challenge, received acceptances only AFTER following up with Miya Lee directly.

Could that be my way in? I wondered.

I hadn’t given up on my story, or rather OUR story. If you count Brandon’s quotes, he “wrote” 45 of the 95 words. I played with it a bit, tweaked a few words, and the day after my friend, Amy Pengra Button, received an acceptance for her beautiful TLS after following up, I sent Miya an email. I mentioned that I submitted my story through the online portal (of course I didn’t say that my portal submission was a full two years earlier), and that I was writing to follow up.

Nothing …

Then, one week later, on our 14th wedding anniversary, I followed up again. Brandon had surprised me with an early anniversary gift—rubber duck earrings—and I figured it was a good omen. Within an hour, Miya emailed me back: She wanted my story. With my friend Nikki’s prompting, I snapped a photograph of the earrings (that somehow formed the shape of a heart) and fired it off to Miya. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have sent yet another option for the picture, but the high of a “yes,” made sweeter by the fact that it arrived on our 14th anniversary, fueled me.

A bonus: The story ran yesterday, August 8, the 14th anniversary of the day we set sail on our honeymoon (maybe the cruise ship qualifies as a giant bathtub?!).

Take a Stab at Tiny Love
When I launched the TLS Challenge in 2021, I became enamored with the process of trying to pack an entire love story into just 100 words. These tightly-packed narratives offer an opportunity to explore all kinds of love—between spouses, partners, friends, siblings, parents, even an ex or the mother-in-law you almost had.

I wrote one about my sister, one about my dad, one about my twins, one about a graduate school professor, and even one about my youngest son’s musings related to my husband’s late wife. As writers, containing stories—creating rules around them—is one way to begin seeing your stories through a new, clearer lens.

In fact, my TLS, just like some of my students’, evolved from a longer piecethat I crafted several years ago (and yes, I cleared that with Miya, and mentioned his quotes appeared in a story I wrote well over a decade ago). Working on the full-length story can help you figure out what you really want to say, and how to capture it all within the 100-word frame.

Want to try your hand at writing a feature-length essay that you can fashion into a TLS, but not sure where to start? If you’ve taken one of my classes before, join my four-week alumni class, which kicks off on September 11. I can’t think of a better way to fall into a fall writing practice.
STUDENT CLIP

This month’s featured clip comes from Kelly James! Fun fact about Kelly: When I was starting out as a new freelancer—years before she showed up in one of my classes—Kelly was my North Star. I saw her byline on health and nutrition stories in myriad outlets. I wanted to follow her lead, so I reached out. She spent at least an hour on the phone with me talking shop, and before long, I started snagging similar assignments. Her book, Ready, Aim, Specialize, helped launch my career.

Kelly’s essay in Huffington Post is about how she was forced to redefine her life when her co-parent died.

A favorite passage: Co-parenting meant that I got a break every two weeks. It also meant that Erik and I were raising our kids together, even though we were divorced. That I wasn’t making every decision, big and small, on my own. That I had someone to commiserate with over the challenges of parenting, someone to celebrate with when one of our kids did something amazing, someone who shared the same memories. Someone who loved them as much as I do. I had become used to being a single parent when the kids were with me, but I never intended, or wanted, to be a sole parent.
PRO QUOTE
 “As a literary artist (which is what I consider myself), I’ve earned the most money from writing I cared about the least, and the least (or no) money from the writing I care about the most. For me, the “realest” writing is the writing I do for the love and necessity of it. It’s the writing I do because it’s burning a hole through my heart, and my life would be a shadow of itself if I let that writing go undone.” – Jeannine Ouellette

And yes, I chose this quote for today’s newsletter because Tiny Love Stories are UNPAID.