Do you ever feel like you forget how to write a story?

I've been cranking and cranking, working and working, deleting and rewriting, writing and deleting, changing angles, and losing my mind, trying to write at least one decent short story.

I've a deadline coming up for an MFA program, and I'm running myself up the wall. I wanted to have at least one longer short story in my manuscript, but it seems that it's all going to be stories under 1000 words. Which is okay, I suppose, but I feel like I wasted so much time on a story that was never going anywhere in the first place, and I just kept trying to whip it into something. =(

I find it's often easier to start again with a new premiss and a new story, than reworking to death an old one - sometimes I just seem to start off on the wrong foot with a story and nothing I do to it changes that and then it's best just to dump it and start fresh.
As for word count, mine usually come out at 1500, 3000 or 4500. Odd that.

I don't feel that so much as worry about it, especially after such a long slog editing. My fear is that I'll forget how to sit down and write from a blank page when the time comes again.

JB