Up right at 2 this morning at my little girl’s insistence. It’s all good. She’s a good baby.
I’m being lazy this morning. It took me over an hour to email a response to a lady who runs a nonprofit. Stuff about how to do things on her WordPress website. Yep, I still haven’t learned. Well, they either take the advice or they don’t. It isn’t like I’m getting royalties. Yawn.
I saw a video (posted it on my Facebook this morning) in which a guy hung out on a street corner. To passersby, he offered, absolutely free, either a large bar of Hershey’s chocolate or a silver ingot worth $150. In every case, they could take either one. In every case, they chose the chocolate. Oh yes, yes. I know those people. Sigh.
I also heard a classic this morning from a respondent (and I am paraphrasing the dialogue here): “Y’know, I offered this incredibly helpful product of mine absolutely free to 1,000 people and not one of them took me up on it. Guess I need to offer it to a lot larger group.”
Yeah, okay. That’ll work. Seriously? Shrug. Everybody needs a hobby.
No walk today at all. Just being and writing.
Okay, listen closely. Here, come closer. I gotta whisper so my subconscious doesn’t hear me. Ready?
My short stories do not want me to meet my goal and accomplish my challenge this month. I swear they’re against me.
Here I am needing to write two per day, and the stories are coming out longer and longer. I won’t be able to write two a day when each story is 4000 words or thereabouts, despite what I said a few days ago when I was feeling very cavalier about the whole thing.
Ugh. So I’m just gonna do what I always do at a time like this: remember to have fun. Writing isn’t work. It’s fun. If it was work, I’d find something else to do. I know I would, ’cause I’ve seen me do it. So I’m gonna have fun and enjoy the characters and what they say and do. The goal and the challenge are secondary. The characters and the fun come first.
I hope that’s how you look at your writing too. Remind yourself to have fun. Run and play with your friends.
Anyway, I posted the story I finished yesterday as next Monday’s story of the week. It’s the first SF I’ve written in awhile, and I even like it.
This morning I wrote for awhile on a new one, then got a shower and ate a little breakfast, then came back to writing. Then I played with my kitten for awhile (she’s sleeping in the window now) and came back to writing again.
As I’m writing this, I’m also eating lunch, and then I’ll go back to writing.
Currently in my challenge, I’ve written 6 stories out of 30. Today is the 15th. That leaves me 16 days (including today) to write 24 short stories. That means I have to write one short story every day, and on 8 days I have to write two. Yeah, well… we’ll see. (grin)
Well, I guess the number’s gonna stay at 6 for another day. If so, beginning tomorrow I have to write one new story every day plus two stories on nine days. Hmmm.
Topic of the Post: No topic today beyond what I wrote above about having fun.
My Current Challenge and Goal
Before October 1, I will write at least 30 new short stories, one for each day in September. To satisfy the challenge, these have to be actual short stories, meaning they have to be over 2,000 words. If I write anything shorter than that, it will count on my numbers but not toward the challenge. Stay tuned.
Today’s Writing
Well, the trend continues. And this one might actually be the beginning of a novella or novel. I honestly don’t know. I only know it feels like the end is nowhere in sight, so this one might be around for awhile even as I write other short stories past it. At least I’m havin’ fun. (grin)
Fiction Words: 3405
Writing of “The Singeing of Norval Babineaux” (short story or something)
Day 1…… 3405 words. Total words to date….. 3405 words
Day 2…… XXXX words. Total words to date….. XXXX words (done)
One thing about these stories — I just have to write them. I don’t have to rush to slap a cover on them and publish them. All of that’s going to come later, although I will pick one each week to be the story for that week. At the end of the month if I’m successful in my challenge I should have 40 publications: 30 individual stories, six 5-story collections, three 10-story collections, and maybe one book titled The Stories of September.
Total challenge stories for the month…… 6 (Goal is 30)
Total challenge words for the month…… 22743
Total fiction words for the month………… 24333 (1590 on Wes)
Total fiction words for the year…………… 489374
Harvey sez: “My short stories do not want me to meet my goal and accomplish my challenge this month. I swear they’re against me.”
Er, if your subconscious is saying no to 2,000 word stories, why not give it its head and see what happens? Nothing to lose and maybe there’s a Dandelion Wine poised to pounce onto the page.
Thanks for the comment, Gary. Dude, I never pull the reins on my stories. They go where they want to go. 2000 words is the bottom limit of what I consider a short story for purposes of this challenge. I said earlier I might write something shorter, but if I did it would count for words but not for the challenge. And the one I posted tonight is a possible novella or novel. I even said I have no idea how long it will be, and even put in parentheses that it’s a “short story or something.” 🙂 At this point the challenge is tongue in cheek. I could still pull it off, but that probably ain’t gonna happen, and that’s okay too. In this post as well, I said the whole point is to have fun, and buddy, that means exactly “give the subconscious its head.” Plus that’s central to writing into the dark, which is the only way I write. Except this nonfiction junk. 🙂 What I’d REALLY like it to get a GROUP of writers to all join in a challenge. Imagine how far we could push each other if there were 6 or 8 or 10 of us. Hmmmmm……