Short version: Write seven stories in one calendar week.
Long version: This is sort of a mini do it ourselves NaNoWriMoWe. No competition, no judgements (except your own) on the quality, just an adventure. At the end either you got it done, or you didn't. The week will be Sunday July 14 through Saturday July 20, 2013 (whatever your local time is, for those not on the Gregorian Calendar UTC).
To count as complete you'll need to write in that week (from beginning to end, no finishing things you've already started but plotting them out before is okay) seven items (at least) that meet the following guidelines:
1) Not more than one poem between 5 and 20,000 words that tells a story. I'm nobody! Who are you? wouldn't qualify, Fearlessness the haiku would.
2) Not more than one flash fiction between 6 and 99 words.
3) Not more than one flash fiction between 100 words and 500 words.
4) Not more than one flash fiction between 501 and 1000 words.
5) Not more than one novelette or novella between 7500 and 20,000 words.
6) Any number of short stories between 1,001 words and 7,499 words.
Assuming you decided to do the lowest possible word count (3615) and have realistic goals it would need to look something like this.
Sunday - 703 and two completions
Monday - 1306 and three completions
Tuesday - 1909 and four completions
Wednesday - 2512 and five completions
Thursday - 3115 and six completions
Friday - Catch up day. You know you don't want it as the last day.
Saturday - 3615 and seven completions
For a story to count it has to be complete, something you could at least in theory have someone else beta read or edit.
Extra items, series, over lapping character(s), over lapping themes, overlapping settings, or whatever else you like is allowed as long as each work is a complete story not requiring anything else to have been read. Extra length is not allowed, nor fan fiction. The point is to practice writing short stories of your own creation and skipping over making characters or making a new plot is cheating.
No one will be checking, the honor system and all.
Post here if you're in, stories as you finish them, and what not.
EDIT: This is in no way affiliated with NaNoWrMo. This is based on an idea by Renfield.
I like it - perhaps I will play along.
I kind of want to do this. Well I really want to do this. I also really need to revise so many stories to send out and have been too overwhelmed. So, I may modify this to suit my own needs since it's not a competition of sorts. I think I'll use those guidlines on rewriting and revising existing works of those lengths. One per day for seven days rather than writing seven new stories, or maybe if I do my revising before those dates then I can play by your rules. Thanks for posting this Dwayne and thanks to Ren for having the original idea, either way I'll use it as inspiration to get shit done.
I'm in.
I also really need to revise so many stories to send out and have been too overwhelmed.
Yeah I've been feeling like that a lot lately, that's kinda why I wanted to do something like this and not think about all the revision of stuff I don't like anymore that seems to take up most of my designated writing time lately. An intensive like this I think is going to be a good way to revamp my writing routine. My plan's to get my youtube playlists ready, bombarde myself with some prompts, I got a good couple personal challenges/exercises/experimental stuff written down somewhere, and try to write an insane amount every morning, edit/finish a story every evening and submit to the places I never dare to submit usually. It's nothing superhuman but it's enough to challenge my habits as they are now. Is that marathon-ish enough?
This sounds pretty cool. I might have to jump in on this.
As long as my wife doesn't have the baby first.
So - anyone else doing this? Shall we post progress updates on this thread? Not so much for the bragging, more to just know that you are part of something with other people.
Thoughts?
Today is Sunday for me, so I am going to get cracking a little later tonight. I have two six hour transits to make over the next few days, so hopefully I should get some stories done then, too. Need to get some completions done early - my week gets hairy towards the end, and I know I'll slip.
A prompt I'd been thinking about for maybe a month finally settled with me, but I feel very precarious about every line so far and I think I'm 1/2-1/3 through.
Okay, I'm in. Well shoot, I better get to it. There are only two hours left to July 14 here and I just saw this.
Also, Dwayne, is this thread open to the public? I think it is because I could see it before I signed in. That means if we post our stories here, many (most) of the markets will consider them published and we would burn first rights. ?
It doesn't matter to me. Just wondering what the deal is.
I would not recommend posting an unpublished story on a forum section that was not password protected. It might come up on a simple google search.
Okay, I have one done, critted, and out. An insane amount of time for a one page story but what can I say, sometimes my mind is just like that. I will not torture y'all with trying to make you read it, haha. So now I guess it's time to start on story #2. Has anyone else made any progress today?
#1) The Weatherman- 250 words
I forgot about this but I'm going to give it a go, my week starts tonight (Monday).
I'm *way* behind schedule, but I have ~600 words done on a short story with no title.
Plenty more to do!
I guess I'll count Monday as day number one also.
Hope Dwayne is doing all right.
So, I'm treating this a little differently than the "rules" as outlined by Dwayne, as I'm sure he doesn't mind since the goal is to write more. On Monday night, I started writing a story until I could barely keep my eyes open. I could only get about 550 words. It's not done. It's a glimpse into a larger story, and something I will expand upon later, once I figure out what it is I want to say. I rarely can get a complete story done in one sitting anyway.
Last night, I wrote about 600+ new scenes/words for a story I've been working on which I aim to finish today, if possible.
My plan today is to continue to work on that story and if time allows, find a prompt to write the seed for something new.
While I'm playing fast and loose with Dwayne's idea, my goal is to get out as much work new work as I can and get some fresh ideas down on paper for my revision stockpile.
Well you're doing better than I am. I'm about 1/3 done with story #2, and it's just a flash story.
I've only got 2 pretty much done so far at a collective 1700ish words and another 600 of just scribblings so far, but I'm pretty positive about the routine so far. I think I'm going to relax on it tonight and research/read some magazines I haven't submitted to before, and if I have an idea of the atmosphere they're looking for that might push me through another story at least.
Got it! Story #2 is done, 450 words. Some days it's like pulling teeth.
I think I'll further modify mine and let go of wordcount restrictions. My stories like to be very short.
You're a master of the very short story, Carly.
Why, thank you! That is ever so much nicer than being told I have the attention span of a flea! :P
Woo hoo times two!
Let's go, go, go! Number three on the way here! Um, all I need is an idea.
#3 is done. 350 words. Hey, I can't help it. I can only write three words per hour. :P
Anyone else made progress today?
Also, Story question- shooting someone a 'selfie" just means a picture you took of "yourself," not a nude picture, right?
Thank you.
My membership is expired but if you want another crit, feel free to send it to me.
Number four done here. 1,100 words, non-fiction. So, a little slow and a little outside the guidelines, but most importantly, getting there. Thanks for this, Dwayne. A challenge helps me step it up, even if I don't score 100% with it. :)
Well. Looks like I failed this one hard. Unless I pull out all the stops and write a metric pissload of words before tonight, then I will only achieve half-a-story-seven-days.
C'mon motivation!
No, but I got #5 done and out today, a 1,200 word article. So, still much better than I usually do. :)
I really like this idea. I think I'll start my week tomorrow and see what happens. :)
I still ended up with a solid two and the rest ended in the trash bin save for a longer one I started on Friday and am still falling in love with. Not too superhuman results but I loved this as an exercise, a good way to force through the bad ideas to break on to the good ones.
I kind of changed the rules of the game to better fit myself, but I had a productive week of writing. I wrote a vignette of what will become a larger story, on two separate days I finished the final scenes for a story I'd been working on, I had a short non-fiction piece, I had another short 150 word story, and today I wrote a scene and some ideas for a new story which I'm looking forward to writing.
Not really even close to what Dwayne suggested, but I realized that wasn't going to work well for me. But without this thread, I probably wouldn't have made as much of a concerted effort to get some new words down in the last 7 days.
So, I lost the challenge, but won the week.