This year was worse than last year. I only managed to finish 50% of the stories I set out to write. Or, put another way, I successfully wrote 6 short stories.
Just like last year, I challenged myself to write twelve short stories over a period of twenty-four days. This is a wash-up of how I thought it went, what I did well, and what I could have improved on.
Results#
| Day | Primary Word | Backup Word | Genre | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | hate | engineer | Dystopian | 👍 |
| 3 | short | rich | Detective | 👍 |
reign | descent | Fantasy | ❗ | |
| 7 | piano | formula | Mystery | 👍 |
theatre | desk | Adventure | ❗ | |
paint | glove | Sci-Fi | ❗ | |
abolish | power | Adventure | ❗ | |
mirror | kneel | Romance | ❗ | |
| 17 | cooperate | manage | High Fantasy | 👍 |
concentrate | zone | Military Fiction | ❗ | |
| 21 | bake | fight | Fairy Tale | 👍 |
| 23 | document | profit | Crime | 👍 |
So, as you can see I managed half of the days, completing 6/12 or 50%.
Lessons Learned#
Genre not Point of View#
Unlike last year, I decided to switch from changing the point of view, to changing the genre of each story.
Switching the point of view last year was an interesting exercise, but I found that it didn’t really add much to the types of stories I was writing. By switching the genre instead, I found that I was forced to write different types of stories, which was a good challenge.
Too many Advents#
Just before December started, not only did I set myself this challenge, but I also committed to doing the Advent of Code programming challenge.
I found quite quickly that my limited time in the evenings held just enough time to do one or the other, but not both.
In future, I think I will have to pick one to focus on, or change my approach from one every two days.
Too Few Words#
I think the majority of the stories that I have written suffer from being far too short. Writing these stories in the evenings, I can hit about 1000-1500 words. Many of the genres that were randomly generated, just need more than that to set the background, or tone.
Take day 7, for example. I came up with the — frankly stupid — idea of having a ‘piano killer’ on the loose, but by the time I had finished the intro, I was ‘out of time’. There was more to tell in my ‘Poirot-esque’ day 3, but alas, I needed to wrap it up.
By day 17 I had realized that there was no way I was going to be able to set up a High Fantasy universe, and then tell a story, in so few words. I solved this by latching onto the High Fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien (which, if I am honest, felt a bit like cheating).
Maybe a more seasoned writer wouldn’t have this issue. Maybe they would be able to take the pre-existing cues that people associate with given genres and skip a lot of the set-up. But, it does beg the question if I should change the format in future to be fewer stories; maybe one every 4 days.
Illness#
Early on in December I caught a nasty cold that laid me low for about a week. This meant that I missed quite a few days.
There is not much I can do to avoid getting sick, other than wear a mask in crowded places during the winter months.
Future Plans#
I’m currently undecided whether I will do this challenge again next year. I enjoyed it, but I really wasn’t able to dedicate enough time to it.
Maybe that’s the point of embrace the suck; accept I am not good at writing, and just write.
Make as much space as I can for it.
Make myself accountable (by writing these goals down)
Then see what happens.
Ignoring all the ones I failed to do, I am very happy with day 23, which I think is my best story so far. I feel the close pacing gave it a good sense of tension and claustrophobia.
If you have followed along with any of the stories, I hope you enjoyed them. Let me know what you think.
Happy Holidays!
