Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

Story Twenty-Seven in Twenty-Seven Days

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN…

In my continuing quest to get ten Marble Grant stories, a brand new character who didn’t exist for me three weeks ago, I wrote another Marble Grant story tonight.

That’s nine now. One more and I will have a Marble Grant story opening the next ten issues of Smith’s Monthly.

And tonight I actually started with the cover image, since the branding on these stories is so clear and I am using the same artist for all of them. Now I have written entire novels from a cover (Jonathan Frakes novel Abductors is one.) And numbers of short stories, so not unusual, but not normal either.

Then, with the cover image in mind, I went to my half-title pages and found “A Missing Sister…” and jammed it together with “…Dream.”

“A Missing Sister Dream.”

And once again I got started around 2:30 in the morning.

I wrote 600 words before taking a break and resting my eyes because I had also written the post above this about the novel challenge.

Went back at 4 a.m. and got another 1,100 words.

Another break, then finished the story at 2,600 words by 5 a.m.

Just having a blast writing these stories. They are all stand-alone and all a little silly.

27 stories in 27 days.

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Here are the Covers and Stories for the April challenge. 

STORIES FROM APRIL
Story #1… April 1… Not Easy to Kill the Light Next Door… 1,700 words 
Story #2… April 2… A Reason to Play a Hunch… 3,200 words 
Story #3… April 3… A Deal at the End of Time… 3,000 words
Story #4… April 4… A Nice Place for Murder… 3,400 words
Story #5… April 5… The Five Roads Tavern and Eatery …3,200 words
Story #6… April 6… The Last Short Putt of a Fearful Man …2,200 words
Story #7… April 7… The Wait …1,200 words
Story #8… April 8… Through the For Sale Sign …2,500 words
Story #9… April 9… Blind Date …4,100 words
Story #10… April 10… Keep Hoping for a New Tomorrow …1,700 words
Story #11… April 11… That Old Tingling …3,200 words
Story #12… April 12… The Last Man …2,500 words
Story #13… April 13… Smile …2,700 words
Story #14… April 14… Always a Way …4,000 words
Story #15… April 15… A No-Win Hand …1,800 words
Story #16… April 16… Habit …2,000 words
Story #17… April 17… A Thief of Regrets …4,600 words
Story #18… April 18… In the Dream of Many Bodies …1,400 words
Story #19… April 19… Wings Out …2,200 words
Story #20… April 20… Delightfully Dizzy …1,700 words
Story #21… April 21… An Immortality of Sorts …2,300 words
Story #22… April 22… Tombstone Canyon …2,600 words
Story #23… April 23… Hidden Canyon …4,300 words
Story #24… April 24… A Lady in Heat …2,400 words
Story #25… April 25… A Look at His Heart …3,900 words
Story #26… April 26… Black Coffee …4,000 words
Story #27… April 27… A Missing Sister Dream …2,600 words

(Plus seven novel starts so far…)

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May ONLINE Workshops 

All May online workshops are available and have openings.

ALL MAY WORKSHOPS ARE STARTING NEXT WEEK!!

ALSO, the workshop schedule through August is now posted. You can sign up ahead for any workshop you want through August.

So for information on how to sign up, go to…

www.wmgpublishingworkshops.com

Any questions at all, feel free to write me. And if you are confused as to which workshop to take first, we have a full curriculum posted on its own page.

Class #41… May 2nd … Author Voice
Class #42…  May 2nd … Business
Class #43…  May 2nd … Endings
Class #44…  May 2nd … Writing Fiction Sales Copy
Class #45…  May 2nd … Writing and Selling Short Stories
Class #46…  May 3rd … Depth in Writing
Class #47… May 3rd … Advanced Character and Dialog
Class #48… May 3rd … Cliffhangers
Class #49… May 3rd … How To Edit Your Own Work (new)
Class #50… May 3rd … Plotting with Depth

HOW TO EDIT YOUR OWN WORK IS AVAILABLE STARTING IN MAY

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Tracking Running… April 27th, 2017
4 miles. Some running…1/8th mile.
Weight 194. (Goal 170)
Month to date distance: 93 miles
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Tracking Word Counts… April 27th, 2017
Totals For Year 4, Month 9, Day 27 (Year started August)
Writing in Public blog streak… Day 1,316

— Daily Fiction: 2,600 original words. Fiction month-to-date: 69,500 words  
— Nonfiction: 00 new words. Nonfiction month-to-date total: 1,000 words 
— Blog Posts: 1,500 new words. Blog month-to-date word count: 22,700 words
— E-mail: 17 e-mails. Approx. 1,100 original words.  E-mails month-to date: 703 e-mails. Approx. 44,900 words
— Short Fiction Goal: 120 stories (July 1st to June 30th). Stories to date: 35 stories.
— Novel Goal: 12 Novels. Novels finished to date: 5 novels.

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2 Comments

  • Sean McLachlan

    I’ve been following this challenge with interest because I’m much more of a novel writer than a short story writer. Last year I wrote 7 novels and only two short stories! I prefer writing and reading novels, but I’m always thinking that perhaps I should try to get better at short stories.
    Back in 2015 I was in the Writer1Sub1 challenge, in which people write and submit a short story every week. I was in it for four months before dropping out to write more novels, but I sure got a lot of short stories written!
    What books would you suggest to help a mid-career writer get better at short stories?

    • dwsmith

      No one book, just lots and lots of details from a ton of books. But only way to actually get better is to just read and write a lot of them. The more you write, the more you read, the more you start understanding the form. For example, we get all four of the Dell magazines in the house every issue. I read most of all four of them.