Nov 15, 2024
Is the new title of the challenge as I officially accept that short stories might not be the best fit for me.
The important parts of the challenge are not going to change: the goal is to write 1,000 words per day, every day, and to finish everything I start. But now that I expect to be writing longer stories, there will be consequences.
Firstly, the aim of publishing a short story every week was dead as soon as I started this. That relied on each story being 5-7,000 words long as a first draft. Now that I am looking to longer stories I have a more realistic aim of a story every month.
Then there are the knock on effects of that: with a longer story it makes sense to publish wide, so these longer stories will no longer be in Kindle Unlimited or exclusive to Amazon. I will put them on all platforms and include a paper edition.
Next, working in a longer format means I will want a more detailed outline. So rather than doing one per day, as I have done for the last month, I am going to switch to doing one a week. I will still work on it every day but some stories might take longer to plan than that.
Editing will remain largely unaffected. I will still do my twenty minutes per day and it will take as long as it takes to get a story finished.
Finally, my reading. This one is trickier. I am thinking of doing a time spent reading fiction and that will be longer stories. But still keeping to the one essay and one poem per day goal. That might be the best option.
I still have two short(ish) stories to edit and publish so the impact won’t be immediatly obvious. This is more about setting the new rules for myself and figuring out how it’s going to work.
This feels like the right decision to have made. There seems little benefit to forcing myself to work in a format that I’m unsuited to and that sells poorly. The novella has always been a more comfortable fit for me. As long as I continue to write my 1,000 words per day and finish everything I start, the original goal of the challenge should still be fulfilled.
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Latest release: Sisterhood
Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 30
Production
Words written today: 1,084
Words written total: 50,716
Plus / Minus target: +3,716
Currently writing: The Lottery
Post-Production
Minutes today: 20
Minutes total: 334
Plus / Minus target: +34
Currently publishing: The Last Outpost
Nov 10, 2024
This morning I published my first short story of the challenge: Sisterhood. I am just waiting for it to go through the Amazon approval process and then I will share the link here.
It took me 230 minutes to get the editing and publishing process done. The first draft was 8,855 words long, so that means it took me 1.5 seconds per word to publish it. I’m not sure that’s a particularly helpful statistic.
Tomorrow I will add it to the website and then, if there is time, move onto editing The Last Outpost.
The writing is still going well, although it feels a bit like I’m struggling to reach a turning point but can’t quite find my was there. It’s not near the end yet, but it’s moving forwards.
I’m enjoying the reading challenge. I have a pretty good collection of short stories I’m working my way through but I want to mix in some more modern essays and poems, so I found some to download. I think this element of the challenge is going to be very interesting.
And that’s the end of the weekend.
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Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 26
Production
Words written today: 1,049
Words written total: 45,381
Plus / Minus target: +3,381
Currently writing: The Lottery
Post-Production
Minutes today: 22
Minutes total: 230
Plus / Minus target: +30
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Reading
Short story: Dip in the Pool – Roald Dahl
Essay: My County Right or Left – George Orwell
Poem: I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon – Stephen Crane
Nov 9, 2024
I decided to go for it on the Bradbury Reading challenge. At the bottom of this post I’ve added a section so you can see what I’ve read. It seemed appropriate to go with a Bradbury short story for day one.
Although I have an Enlish degree, I’ve never really gotten into poetry for pleasure. I’m not sure if that’s going to change during the course of this challenge or not, but I think I get something from reading it.
The way I was taught to read a poem is to read it at least five times. Once in your head, followed by three times out loud, then a final time in your head again.
This is not all the reading I will do in a day. I am also listening to the audiobooks of the Expanse series, and reading Unruly by David Mitchell. I don’t expect to read them any less because of this. This reading is extra, the time it takes will come from time I was otherwise spending online.
The writing is still going well. My current story is going to be the longest one so far, but that’s not a problem. On the editing side, I am just working on the product description fo Sisterhood, and will hopefully have that up for order next week.
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Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 25
Production
Words written today: 1,056
Words written total: 44,332
Plus / Minus target: +3,332
Currently writing: The Lottery
Post-Production
Minutes today: 22
Minutes total: 208
Plus / Minus target: +28
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Reading
Short story: All Summer in a Day – Ray Bradbury
Essay: Dentists Without Borders – David Sedaris
Poem: Dirge in Woods – George Meredith
Nov 4, 2024
One of the reasons that aiming for a small amount of work each day is effective for me, is that it’s hard to say I can’t find the time. A single story idea, a thousand words, twenty-minutes of editing, a short blog post. None of it seems like a lot, but doing it every day adds up.
Today I had Oscar’s friend over from school and if I’d had a lot of editing to do, I might not have done any. The excuse that I couldn’t make the time would be right there. But twenty-minutes isn’t much time, so I did it.
In a single day, twenty-minutes doesn’t look like much, because it isn’t. But that’s ten hours a month, 120 hours a year. That’s more than I think I would manage if I was aiming for 40 minutes a day or something.
I think the key is that it’s easy to do, and difficult to make excuses not to do. If I can’t find 20 minutes to do some editing then I would have to question how committed I am to all this.
The writing is continuing to go well. I haven’t hit the pit of frustration yet, so I’m probably still quite early in the story, but I’ll get there. This is story number four and I’m beginning to see patterns in things.
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Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 20
Production
Words written today: 1,040
Words written total: 39,116
Plus / Minus target: +3,116
Currently writing: The Lottery
Post-Production
Minutes today: 24
Minutes total: 97
Plus / Minus target: +17
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Nov 3, 2024
It’s not the end of the process, but this morning I finished my first read through of Sisterhood. Tomorrow I will move onto a pass using Pro Writing Aid.
The writing on The Lottery is going well, although I think it is going to be another long one. Possibly the longest so far, based on the number of words I’ve already written, and where I am in the story. I’m enjoying it though.
We were out for most of today, at my nephews birthday party. They played laser tag and we sang karaoke. It was a fun day.
Tomorrow Oscar goes back to school, and Tamzin goes back to work, so I’m going to lose some time in the mornings. I think I will still be able to manage everything though.
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Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 19
Production
Words written today: 1,066
Words written total: 38,076
Plus / Minus target: +3,076
Currently writing: The Lottery
Post-Production
Minutes today: 23
Minutes total: 73
Plus / Minus target: +13
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
