The Story a Week Challenge

2019 was a year of many challenges and many accomplishments. Fog Season came out — yay! The Gordath Wood series was reissued by sfgateway!! Woo-hoo! I managed programming for ArmadilloCon, and boy howdy was that a challenge but also a huge accomplishment.

The other big challenge started in January and was one that I gave myself in the interests of becoming a better writer. Starting the first week in January, I strove to write a story a week.

It was an interesting experiment. Some stories flowed from my fingertips. Others were like chipping granite. I had to turn off the internal editor and let the magic happen, and well, sometimes the magic didn’t happen. I kept myself from going back to reread, because I wanted to let the stories gel. I’ve only now, in November, gone back to review my output. And, well…

In some ways, this was a failed experiment. I wrote fewer than twenty stories (correction: I just found a couple that I had written and forgotten about, so there are actually twenty stories! Woo-hoo!). I was derailed in the summer when the convention took all of my free time. Some of the stories were pretty…not good. (Interestingly, my opinion of which ones those were has changed since I’ve gone back to reread.)

In more important ways, I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Some of these stories worked in exciting ways. One has become a new novel project, and it’s hard, and kicking my butt, and stretching me in ways I never thought I would grow, and I would never have discovered this story without this project. I’m excited by what I’ve produced. There’s a dopamine hit for every The End I’ve written, something that takes longer when writing a novel. So basically this project was me like a rat hitting the crack button, but anyway…

Two stories have already started the submission process, and another two have gone out to my small cadre of newsletter subscribers. I’m editing them one at a time, while also working on new projects. They are a deep well of work that I intend to draw on.

Will I do this again in 2020? I don’t know yet. Maybe it’s an every other year thing, since 2020 will be filled with editing. And the year isn’t over. I’ve got a few more weeks left. Maybe it’s time to see if I can get at least a handful of stories out before December 31.

1. The Campaign
2. The Star Seeds Witches Meet at Midnight (on submission)
3. The Westering Woman (novella)
4. Dirt Track Rodeo Girl
5. Archaea (unfinished)
6. Dog Girl
7. Red Ned Mederos and the Sea Girl of Port St. Frey (newsletter)
8. Tru Blue
9. Following the Sun
10. G on a Shopping Spree
11. Last Train to Hab One
12. Francine Goes West
13. Five Sons for Fala (novella)
14. Caro Comes Home
15. Sepia
16. The Long Walk (unfinished)
17. The Cutting Table (newsletter)
18. Pony
19. Lucy Grey
20. The Scent of Horses (on submission)