My Personal Challenge Update…
Not Quitting… Firing On…
I set out to write one short story per day for this entire year. I am not out of the fight, but life needs to ease up a little bit over the last five months of the year for me to get close. Not expecting that. Hoping, not expecting. (grin)
If I do come close, it will be a total success. Actually anywhere over 200 short stories in one year is a total success by any standards. That is more than most writers do in an entire career. But we shall see.
I already have my challenge for myself set for 2026. I will write one novel every two weeks.
My novels tend to be around 50,000 words. That is 25,000 words a week. That is about 3,500 words per day, or about three hours a day at my writing speed. A ton easier than starting a short story every day, or two on some days. And from this challenge this year I have some really fun novel starts.
So going to give this short story challenge a ramp up here in the last five months of the year and head into the novel challenge at full speed.
More updates over the fall.
3 Comments
Richard
Will you release all 26 of your 2026 novels under your own name as you write them? How does that impact the platform algorithms?
dwsmith
Why would I care about platform algorithms??? (Whatever that might be on Amazon, which is only a very tiny slice of my overall sales and income.) You need to stop listening to idiots who think that is important and actually focus on writing more and getting it out wider than just one “platform.”
And no idea how I will release the books. More than likely a combination of Kickstarters, sales on my store, and wide release around the world. No idea on any of that until I write each book and since I never plan what I am going to write, none of that makes any difference until I finish each book. So the answer to that is “We shall see.”
Balázs Jámbor
So inspirational.
This year I wrote more than any other year before, although I didn’t write any during June. July is already better; I don’t really understand what happened at the start of the summer.
I hope you do well on your challenge! It’s great to follow your success.