A very intriguing contest! After many decades of reading for pleasure and saying "I can't write fiction", I recently tried my hand at writing a tiny story. This was for @jayna 100 word story contest. I thought "How hard can that be?" and astonished myself with a tiny story that I loved. "Hm" the reader in me thought "maybe I could try that again" and the next tiny story was even better! Two more after that and I felt like I had hit my stride, even dreaming the basis of one of the stories. I started writing for the five minute freewrites, weekend freewrites and an occasional essay about something in my life. I'd like to offer my entry to your contest as a beginning writer.

My attempts at writing fiction were the beginning of a shift in the way I read everything. I started to notice a bunch of stuff like never before.

• Even in the shortest yummiest freewrite stories, the authors I love best all know how to write that first sentence so that there are lots of ways to go with it. And boy does that suck me right in.
• Those who use simple words, common turns of phrase, and describe basic emotions seem to have the most success in pleasing me. Tolkien comes to mind for me here, and especially his Ents. I don't think they appear in The Hobbit so read on!
• Structure! I admit I have always marveled at how an author structures a great novel. I imagine they must have a wall of post it notes that get moved around to put the whole dang thing together, or that is a method I would try anyway. Now that I have started writing my tiny stories, I have a deep respect for anyone who can put something gargantuan together so that it comes out as a cohesive whole. Again, Tolkien excelled at this. But as complicated as this must be for writing a novel, it is also a necessary skill to develop in short stories, maybe even more important.
• The fewer the words, the more clout each word, phrase and sentence has to have. I have always loved best those authors who can give me the essence in the fewest words possible. Now that I am writing myself, and see how much of my proofreading involves deleting stuff, I appreciate that much more. An example of an author who does NOT do this well (and still wins awards) is NK Jemison.
• Then there is the magic. This has always been the feature I admire the most in a story, and also the one that the reader in me craves. This was the characteristic of a story that I was certain I could never ever do. Freewriting has shown me that it's not a thing that one does, but rather a thing the writer has to trust will present itself. My favorite author for this is Robertson Davies. One of my least favorite authors for this was Frank Herbert. I so wanted to love his books and read all of the Dune books, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I knew there would be no more.
• The most important lesson I have learned as a nascent writer is trust and breath. When I read a great story now, I know that it, to a great extent, was a thing born, and not made.

So there you go. A beginning writer's new found appreciation of the writer's craft. Thank you for reading!