So here we are halfway through the year. And yes, I’ve written 26 stories. Well, I fudged it a bit–I have 26 never-been-published short stories in my trunk. Most are in first draft format. Some aren’t really stories–they don’t have a beginning, middle, and ending. Some are just weird kinda fictional essays. Some I’m not sure what the point is–they’re more of an idea. But given the kinds of things I’ve read, this seems to be okay.
I’m still not fond of writing them. It’s still a struggle to get my ass in the chair and churn out copy, but it’s happening. It’s a trickle, but the bucket is filling. I’m not dry on ideas. Not yet. And at the end, I will have a lot of stuff I can submit. I don’t always get five hundred words down, but they are getting completed. (Some of them have more conclusive endings than others).
Are my skills improving? I have no idea. Maybe as far as the short story medium is concerned, yes. Not that it’s getting any easier, but maybe the quality is increasing as I go on, even if I still have no idea what a real short story is. It’s so difficult to get all the parts down in 4,000 words. I keep wanting to take the stories to the next step, to escalate, but I don’t have room.
So I’m going to keep going. I still don’t like it, but I think it’s good for me. Like eating my writing vegetables.
