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First Story Done

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

Three Days Ahead

Nov 2, 2024

A good morning of work. I managed to get myself three days ahead on the writing side, and am half a day ahead on editing already. I think that’s a pretty good way to start the weekend.

It’s going to be interesting to find out if I can actually edit every day next week. Tuesdays are the busiest day of the week for me and I have got it into my head that I can’t even find twenty-minutes to do a bit of work. Logically, that’s probably not true, but it might mean that I have to edit on my phone, or grab some time first thing in the morning after I’ve done my writing.

Twenty-minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, but over the course of a year, it’s going to add up to over 120 hours, which is a much better figure. And if I find that I can easily edit this amount, there’s nothing to stop me doing more.

I have to accept that editing is the thing most likely to be disrupted by Christmas and other things. So far I haven’t had to use any of the lead I’ve built up but it’s only a matter of time before that changes. I went into this knowing it would happen, but I think it will still feel a bit like a failure when it does.

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Pre-Production

Stories planned (total): 18

Production

Words written today: 1,019

Words written total: 37,010

Plus / Minus target: +3,010

Currently writing: The Lottery

Post-Production

Minutes today: 24

Minutes total: 50

Plus / Minus target: +10

Currently publishing: Sisterhood