Challenge,  On Writing

My Challenge

September 4, 2025 / 7 Comments

Four Months Left…

My challenge had two parts. First, the idea was to write a short story per day for the entire year. Second, to get my writing back up to over Pulp Speed One, which is one million words a year.

The year started off rough right from the start, with a ton of business things that just overwhelmed everything. Called a life roll, and I sort of expected it but hoped I could drive through it. Nope. It was just too much.

But my word count has been hanging around the pace to make one million words, so that part I think I can smash through in the next four months.

But story per day is long lost at this point. Still got a ton of short stories done, which I have done nothing with yet (another part of the problem.) That’s why I haven’t counted them. Too depressing.

So with four months left, I am doing to take September and October to do a few things. Adjust.

  • First, I am going to continue to write some stories. 
  • Second, I am going to start easing over to writing novels, maybe do one in the next two months and ramp up the last two months.
  • Third, I am going to retrain myself on InDesign and restart Smith’s Monthly. I have always done everything with Smith’s Monthly, from the covers to the two-column layout to the 70,000 words of fiction in each issue.
  • Fourth, I will start doing the covers for the stories I have done this year and get them into Smith’s Monthly. And eventually on my store and up around the world.
  • Fifth, I will start doing a series of collections that I had planned at the start of the year. I will do the covers and such. VAs will do the rest.
  • Sixth, Smith’s Monthly will be on my Patreon Page every month.

So I will report in on this new challenge ever month or so. Still happy with how I managed to take my writing from dead stop in December to back up to a decent speed. Now it is time to ramp up a little more and get ready for the novel challenge starting in January.

And maybe, just maybe, an even larger challenge starting in November when I turn 75.

Ahh, the fun of challenges. Always resetting.

 

7 Comments

  • Vincent Zandri

    September 4, 2025 at 11:30 am Reply

    Now that im doing Kickstarters and getting involved in editing anthologies and a new imprint i created with Troy Lambert called Book Blasts I find myself consumed with more business stuff than ever! But im still managing close to 2000 words per day. Im thinking I need a VA sooner than later…
    V

  • Michael W Lucas

    September 4, 2025 at 6:17 pm Reply

    For what it’s worth, you are not alone. I’m also trying to regroup and get my goals for this year back in shape. I run my goals birthday-to-birthday, to remind myself that it’s all up to me, but the first half of this year has scrambled *everything*.

    All we can do is take a deep breath, look at where things are, and brew up a fresh scheme.

    Still beats a day job.

  • Sheila

    September 10, 2025 at 5:12 pm Reply

    I admire how you can regroup and restart, no matter what life throws at you. It’s a darned good practice. And something we can all learn and benefit from.

    I’m having to do it myself, since I’ve spent the last seven months suffering from some agonizing pain that I was unable to get any pain meds for (A1C “too high”). At any rate, I’ve got some ideas and some plans, and we’ll just have to see how the rest of the year works out.

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