This week I managed to write 1,853 words of a new speculative fiction story about a woman who has to choose the future reality of her society. This is short of my goal by 1,147 words...but we can call it "warming up," right?I did have a realization though that I want to adjust my goal a bit for a couple of reasons. I had said I was going five new speculative fiction stories of 3,000-5,000 words, one story drafted per week for the first five weeks.
First, I'm taking off the word count goal. I don't care how many words my short stories are. Some may be longer and some shorter; the point is to have a finished story.
Second, I realized that it might be more effective (i.e. less boring) to work on more than one story per week rather than trying to write a draft of an entire story in one week. That way I can work on one story until I get stuck and then move onto a different story and make some progress there, and eventually (in theory) chip away at all five until they're done.
Still want to finish a first draft of five short stories in five weeks though. That's still a goal. And I'm sticking with the speculative fiction theme.
In related-but-slightly-different news, I attended a meeting of Failure Club tonight, an idea started by my friend George. The point of Failure Club is to set big goals and embrace failure as an inevitable part of success. My Failure Club goals this year are: sell 500 copies of a book, get five pieces accepted for publication by literary journals/magazines, and do three public readings. The way this fits into Failure Club: I'm sure I'll try many strategies for selling 500 books, some of which will fail; I'm sure I'll receive lots of rejections before I get my acceptances; and I may chicken out about the public readings (though I already have one scheduled in April--eek!).
How about you? What did you work on this week?
Hi Sione,
ReplyDeletefailure is an inevitable part of the creative process, but it is critical in learning and moving forward. It's really good to see it embraced and used in a positive way.
I completely agree with you on reducing your word count. It is enjoying the journey that matters, not flogging yourself to get there. I see too many writers pushing themselves and then getting dangerously close to burn out. It sounds like you're in touch with where you need to be and that's healthy.
Good luck with your writing. Stay with it as you can and I'll look forward to your next check-in.
Hello Sione
ReplyDeleteYour goals are awe inspiring. I commend you for setting the bar high and accepting the outcome.
Failure is something that keeps us all back a bit. Giving us an easy "out" when we think the goals is too difficult to attain.
This gives me hope that failure is acceptable enough to continue to push myself further than I may be strictly comfortable with.
Thank you for sharing that with your readers. :)