Life, Writing, Weirdness

Following up on yesterday’s general post, the theme for January is Back to Basics. Waaaaay back in 2007, I first started taking my writing more seriously and dove into short fiction. Since then, I’ve finished something above 287 stories that can be classed as less than novel length. “Something above” because there are at least three micro-fiction pieces I can remember but can’t find, so the total includes everything I can find plus the Star Trek fan fiction short pieces I’ve written.

By finished, I mean at least the first draft is complete. The number of stories that has reached final draft is 50-ish less.

By novel length, I mean the SFWA definition of a novel as anything above 40,000 words.

Back to Basics sets me a target of four short stories for the month of January. I know from the obsessive spreadsheet tracking I’ve done over the years that my average first draft of a story falling into the short story range (1-7.5k words) is 3,367 words. Four of those takes me to a goal of 750 words per day of new fiction for the month of January.

Feels achievable.

I did start the first of those shorts yesterday, a Science Fiction story with the working title “Beyond Antares” (which yes, contains a Star Trek reference beyond the title). Updates on overall theme progress may happen on Thursdays or maybe just in a monthly recap.  Haven’t quite decided yet and it will probably depend on my academic workload in the moment over the next few months.

Be well, everyone.