Yeah, that crashed and burned almost as soon as I set the challenge.

Don’t get me wrong, I wrote a few short stories, sent them out, and had a lot of fun. Then I became quickly distracted with life. Bringing my daughter home from the hospital, raising a first child, struggling with employment, etc. etc.

But I learned a lot from the experience and what some of my current limitations are. So here is the new challenge.

I will be following Heinlein’s Rules of writing fiction:

1. You must write
2. You must finish what you write
3. Do not rewrite except to editorial demand
4. Send your work out
5. Keep your work on the market until it sells.

Here’s where I stand with those rules in general

1. This is the fun part, even when I find myself stopping for various reasons it doesn’t take me long to get back to the computer and continue again.
2. This one is a bigger problem than I like to admit. I tend to get shiny new story syndrome halfway into my stories or when I’m not sure how to end them.
3. Never really struggled with this one. I assume I’m not a skilled enough writer to recognize what is wrong with my own stories, let alone how to then fix those errors. So, I learn as I go along and try better on the next story.
4. This is another one I have issues with. I tend to send shorts out to one market or two and then promptly forget about them. I have an entire hard drive of stories with no homes.
5. Once it’s published, I don’t have any issues with it. I assume if it sells it’ll take a while and again number 3 helps here.

In reviewing my career so far, I’ve learned there are a stunning number of stories that I’ve written, partially written, or intended to write and got distracted before I could get to it. So, my new writing challenge is to do Heinlein’s rules but work backwards.

I’m going to get every story I’ve ever written out on the market. Meaning I am going to self-publish everything.

Once those are done, I’m going to go back and finish writing all the halfway done or partially done stories, series, collections I have cluttering my hard drive.

Then once all the homeless and half-formed creations that have been lurking in the shadows are taken care of I’ll start on new stories.

My hope is that by focusing on rules 2 and 4 I’ll improve upon some weaknesses I have as a writer. Then when I do tackle new stories I’ll have processes in place to make sure they are finished and put out into the world.

I’ll also make a point of writing more on this blog. Nothing formal or fancy, just a few posts here and there to keep my mind on writing and this challenge.

Let’s see how this challenge goes!