Challenge,  On Writing

My Challenge

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.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *