I haven’t completed as many stories as I wanted to complete for this challenge so far. Part of that happened because the first story I started turned out to be much longer than I realized. More of a novelette than a short story. And that threw everything a bit off.
I also didn’t expect that I had so much more to write about in the story I was finishing. It’s gone well beyond short story and is rapidly approaching short novel length. I had no idea that there was so much more to write in that story. When I stopped writing on it, I was stuck. And, looking back, I think I was stuck because I was trying to take the story in a direction it didn’t want to go. Once I let the story go in a different direction, the words started to flow.
I’m still going to try and write as many stories as I can during this challenge, but I don’t think I’m going to make my original goal. But I’ve already written three stories and am working on two more, which is more than I would have if I hadn’t been challenging myself. Failing to success, as Dean Wesley Smith says.
I’ve been more tired this summer than I expected. Backpacking, crossfit, pull up workouts, runs, busting my brains at my job and writing… all of it takes energy and time. And I also try to take time to be with my husband, to spend time talking with him and enjoying television shows and movies together. I’m making time for writing out of everything else, and sometimes that’s hard, not because I don’t want to write, but because I need sleep.
When this posts, I’ll be out in the Sawtooth Wilderness, probably sleeping late after an attempt at Plummer Peak. Or getting up early for the attempt, it will depend on how many days we take to get to our base camp on Everly Lake. And I’ll have my 100 words to write, maybe on another new story because it’s harder to keep track of the stories that I’ve been writing on my computer when I’m out there.
After all, I’m still going strong with my commitment to finish the stories that I’ve started, so the more I start, the more I should finish.