Oct 4, 2024
Last night and this morning I got into the state of mind where everything I have written this week seems stupid and I was trying to think of ways I could quit the story and still continue the challenge.
If I’m honest, I’m surprised it has come so quickly, but this is the point where in the past couple of years I have stopped. Maybe it came sooner because I’m writing something short and the point isn’t related to the amount of time I’ve spent working on the story, but to the percentage of the story I have written?
I was pretty close to stopping, but then I realised that this was the whole point of this challenge: to reach that point over and over again in quick succession and keep going anyway, like I used to. In doing so, I hope to take away the power of that feeling.
It helps that it is a short story because there are only a few days where I have to deal with feeling like I’m wasting my time on a rubbish story. In a couple of days I will be working on something new.
In that sense, I count today as a big success and when I finish the story tomorrow or Sunday I will be very pleased.
I’m 641 words ahead of schedule now. So averaging 134 words extra per day. Tomorrow is Saturday, so time won’t be as tight and I might get some additional words, but we shall see. As long as I get my 1,000 words I’m happy.
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Words written today: 1,103
Words written total: 5,641
Plus / Minus target: +641
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Currently writing: Sisterhood
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
Oct 3, 2024
A crazy day at work today but I got my writing done in the morning so pleased with that. I also have a working title for the first short story.
The interesting thing with titles is that they really help to focus the story. There are a few strands now coming together thanks to the working title, which may very well turn out to be the final title.
Other than that, not a lot to report. I’m now half a day ahead of where I need to be.
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Words written today: 1,106
Words written total: 4,538
Plus / Minus target: +538
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Currently writing: Sisterhood
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
Oct 1, 2024
Tuesdays are the busiest day of the week for me in terms of commitments, and this week is busy in general, but I have organised my time so that even on the busiest days I can still write and blog.
I have a better idea where the story is going now but still not ready to settle on a title. The actual writing was noticeably easier than yesterday as well.
This week I don’t have a story to get published so time is a bit easier. Once I get this story written that will change and I will be writing one story in the morning, then editing and publishing a second story in the afternoon. It will be interesting to see what, if any, changes I need to make to my schedule in order to accommodate that.
As things currently stand I’m on track for this story to be around the 6,000 word mark, which means it should be finished on Saturday. I’m going to start on the next one immediatly. If I still need the daily word count then it will happen the same day.
My word count is below and I’m currently 226 words ahead of schedule. At that rate I will gain an extra day every nine days. Which would put me nine days ahead of schedule by Christmas. And although I don’t intend to stop writing completely during the holiday, it will be nice to have a bit of padding.
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Words written today: 1,135
Words written total: 2,226
Plus / Minus target: +226
Currently writing: TBC
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
Sep 27, 2024
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.
Sep 23, 2024
It has been over three years since I last published a new story. Everything I’ve published in the last few years has either been a re-release of an existing story, or something that I had finished previously. I finished my most recent release, The Long Winter, over ten years ago.
I haven’t really stopped writing during that time and maybe a couple of things got as far as a finished first draft, but nothing went further and most things didn’t even get that far. I made plans, worked on projects, even wrote about some of them here, but nothing progressed, nothing actually got finished.
There are reasons for this. It has been an incredibly difficult few years for our family, but not finishing stories has been bugging me. I don’t like it. I don’t really feel like I’m living if I’m not writing, and as I have come to realise that I’m not finishing what I’m starting, it’s become increasingly difficult to convince myself it’s a good idea to start a story.
Which is where this challenge comes in.
Over the next year, I am going to write 52 short stories and publish them all. That’s one short story a week.
Which is a bit of an over-simplification of what I’m planning, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Effectively, what I am going to do is spend an entire year finishing stories. That is what I want to get out of this challenge; to return to being the type of person who finishes the stories I start.
The slightly longer version of the challenge is that I am basing this on the average short story being around 5,000 words long, so my daily challenge will actually be to write 1,000 words. That gives me 2,000 extra words a week for stories that require more space. There are a few other things involved as well, like editing, designing covers, formatting, etc., which I have accounted for so that I can publish an average of 5,000 words every week.
Normally I release books on all platforms, but for the sake of this challenge, I am going to be releasing on Kindle Unlimited. Later on, when I put them into collections, I will release wide, or if I change my mind during the challenge.
Another element of this challenge is accountability. That is why you are going to see a lot more blog posts from me. I am going to be writing here every day, even if it is only to let you know what my word count for the day is. Although, hopefully I can add a bit more than that!
The fiction part of the challenge kicks off next Monday (30th September). The blogging starts now as I put things in place and get ready. I’m looking forward to getting started and to finally getting over the hurdle of finishing what I start.
