Back in 2008 when I attended an an artist residency in Virginia to work on a draft of my second novel, I had some 4x6-inch Post-it Notes on my desk. One day as I stared out the window at the horses in a nearby field, I wrote a little story down on one.

It felt good, writing a whole little tale on the sticky. It felt so much better (at that moment) than writing my novel.

Yes, I was procrastinating, but it felt productive. I decided to write at least one Post-it Note story a day. When I finished each tiny story, I stuck it to my studio wall. By the end of week three, I was pretty addicted to the little guys.

What I'm saying is I had a lot of little stories. They were colorful too, and I could see my accomplishment so vividly: immediate gratification.

It's not that it was an entirely new form for me. I'd spent 20 years writing flash fiction (stories approximately 1,200 words or less) before I wrote my first novel. But I'd never experimented with paper as boundary before. I'd never stuck my stories to a wall.

Back at the residency I did, in fact, make progress on novel No. 2. But, at the end of my stay there, my artist friends encouraged me to "install" the stories like an art project during the final night of open studios. They even helped me light them properly. The grid of colorful papers looked beautiful and important, each component a whole narrative that visitors stopped to read and ponder.

When I got back to Pittsburgh, I adapted my process into fiction writing exercises for my students. I've had classes at Silver Eye Center for Photography re-title photographs with tiny Post-it Notes. Students at University of Pittsburgh have plucked sentences written on midsized Post-it Notes from a wall.

This semester, my Carnegie Mellon University class ("Survey of Fiction - Forms") wrote at least 20 Post-it Note stories in a week.

Each student then picked one for our own "artistic" installation in the Creative Writing Program offices in Baker Hall, as seen here. We've encouraged students and faculty who walk through to add their own.

The stories are fun -- intriguing, oftentimes powerful bits of life captured in a tiny space that isn't cyber or technological. It's about paper and stickiness, this writing.

It's also a great way for young writers to explore the basic components of fiction -- dialogue, character, plot, setting -- in bits and pieces as they prepare to write longer, more complex works.

I typed up and revised my many stories, and since then quite a few have been published. They're short -- 100 words or less. Even today there are packs of Post-it Notes all over our house.

Sometimes there are stories on walls.

She couldn't be pregnant, she just couldn't be. But not to Marie. She paced around the room holding the damned applicator, the five minutes seemed like an eternity. The "bastard," she though, he'll pay for what he did! And with the long time coming the little negative sign appeared and she sank into the chair with a sigh. Thank God. Two years later she married the "bastard" and had twins. One to make up for the time she "almost" had one.

-- ANGELA WANG

-- Some call me neurotic but when I woke up today and there was no sun I had to do it. Well ... The sun was hiding. And you know what they say: When the cat's away, the mice will play.

-- And I'm a mouse. So I stretched the Old Navy hoodie up, up over my head. Up, up my shirt, my bra. Down the flannel pants and the panties. One sock, two socks. Then I was out the door.

-- No sun, no clothes. The whole neighborhood was out, but they couldn't see me charging off Main Street; they could only hear.

-- I climbed the water tower. I screamed at the top of my lungs. Then the clouds disappeared.

-- LAUREN MOBERTZ

"You feel like talking? Because I don't even know if we should," he says.

"No," she says, "we shouldn't talk or even say a word to each other." Then she walks over to stand in front of him.

"I haven't seen you for months."

"We just can't get along," she says.

"Why can't we talk?"

"We have nothing to say."

"Do we?" he says "I don't know if that's true. We used to talk a lot about food. We could still do that."

"Well then," she says, "How was breakfast? Did you like your eggs?"

-- STEPHEN EPPLE

I waved my arm to signal "ta-da." But no smoke and no song was revealed. A hand reached out in place of the absurd, the slit in the green velvet curtain. Oh, this cabin full of limbs. The way the color red made its exit, how it's invisible now. The winter made of whiskey. Put the whole cottage of antiques on eBay, somebody get us out of here.

-- M. CALLEN

He eats saltines, wrapped in loose-fitting plastic. Crumbs everywhere. The idea of smoking fills the room. matchbooks, ashtrays, a silk jacket.

The white rabbit in the cage nibbles on carrots, cautiously surveying the happening. A party. The TV, microwaved dinners, a single deck of cards.

In the morning, the tap of typewriter keys. Clickety-clack like tap shoes, like ice cubes in a short glass, like a pair of dice.

-- SHERRIE FLICK

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.