All this thinking about my upcoming short story challenge has gotten me thinking about the first challenge I did. This was over ten years ago and my goal was to write 1,000,000 words in the course of a year.
I think my final total was somewhere in the region of 800,000 and a lot of those I didn’t publish, but it was a lot and really kick-started my writing. Before that I was dreaming big, but not writing much at all.
I didn’t make it to the full million words because somewhere along the way, I changed my mind about what I wanted to achieve. If I had only been writing first drafts, I’m sure I would have reached my word count, but I started publishing some of what I was writing and wanted to make more of that.
As things currently stand, I am planning to write 365,000 words over the course of the year. I am focusing on short stories because the main goal of the challenge is to get me finishing things again. Making money or getting reviews doesn’t figure into this (if it did, then I wouldn’t be considering short stories).
Things change though. I might get halfway through this challenge and have an idea for a longer story that I really want to work on. It wouldn’t make sense for me to doggedly stick to the rules of this challenge and force myself to write another 26 short stories before starting on the longer piece.
That may not happen, but I am prepared if it does. And I think I could do it without really breaking the rules I have set for this challenge. As long as I continue to write an average of 1,000 words a day, and finish everything I start, does it really matter if one story is longer than the others?
The aim, above all else, is to finish stories again. The short stories are only a method of achieving that goal.