Write a Story a Day

Here’s another writing challenge that I like:

In this one, you write a story every day during the month of May. Weekends are optional; or if one of the days during your week is never good for you, you can decide ahead of time not to write on that day. You don’t have to post any of your work online if you don’t want to. The point of this challenge is to get you to write, every day, and to finish the stories you write. Since you write a new story each day, it drives you to think about what’s next, and to come up with new ideas even when you think you won’t have any.

For people who want an extra nudge to push them into writing more, or writing every day, or finishing things they start (or all of the above!) this could be a fun challenge. Stories can be of any length, so it keeps you from using everybody’s favorite excuse, “I don’t have time!”

I’m going to participate. I already decided that my own personal goal, if I want to write full time, is to write at least 2000 words a day, every day. For the month of May, and Story A Day, all I have to do is write those 2000 words in the form of short stories. Ditto for National Novel Writing Month this year – I’ll write the daily 2000 words as part of a novel (which is what I do most of the time anyway.) Those same 2000 words also meet my quota for the 1000 Words A Day challenge.

Here’s how Story A Day came into being last year:

http://storyaday.org/storyaday-2010-factsheet/

Here’s the Story A Day blog, full of writing prompts, challenges, and ideas about how to become more productive:

http://storyaday.org