Layers and Layers

Today I started a new project. I envisioned a book of short stories something like Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon monologues, with the same characters appearing throughout. So I sat down this morning and pounded out 1309 words and sent the story to everyone I know, practically.
I thought about reading or(or rereading for the umpteenth time) one of the Lake Wobegon stories, but I resisted the temptation and plunged right in. An hour and a half later I was done. I read it, and it looked pretty good. I knew I had a writers' group meeting tomorrow, so I posted it on our site with a note -- this is very short,if there is time after other people read what they brought. I proofread the paper, but didn't edit it. I like to let a piece of writing sit and jell for at least twenty-four hours before I start picking at it. But this one, I thought, was an amazing first draft.
Then I wondered how many words were in a Lake Wobegon story. The only way to find out was to type one of the stories out and then use the Word Count tool on the computer. Before I had read past the first paragraph, I knew Garrison Keillor's story was waay out of my league -- a stratospheric distance, in fact.
His story had 2,190 words - about twice as long as mine. But while my little story had six characters mentioned, his had fifteen. The number of characters was less important than the number of stories within the story -- all woven together.
It is something to shoot for, I guess, but it is discouraging to realize you are still building with wooden blocks while they big guys are raising skyscrapers.