As usual with this challenge, I have started to slow down. The word count is not much of an issue, but the idea generation can be grueling, especially if you have other priorities offering a distraction as I do. Last week I got a handful of short stories out to market, including one that was one a deadline, so the editing took priority.

I’m also finding this year’s odd weather a limitation. You might wonder what the weather has to do with it, but I like to take plot walks with members of my family or even on my own. We had a four-day stretch of mid 70s and I managed a rush of idea work, including the perfect finish for my untitled modern-day steampunk. You’d think the problem would be heat, considering I live in a desert and it’s mid May, but in fact it’s been too cold to walk outside.

Still, today is the 16th, and I’ve started my 8th story, which means I’m on target for my goal of 15 stories, or approximately one story every two days. This has been my goal over the past few years, one I haven’t achieved in a while, but I usually walk out of May with 10 solid stories. That’s almost the equivalent of one short story a month for the year, and leaves me time to focus on my novels throughout the other months.

The new story info:

4 cont.) Untitled steampunk came in at 2741 words.
5) A Demon from Hell – a 2043 word fantasy short in the style of Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon.
6) The Unfamiliar Familiar – a 1388 word fantasy which is either whimsical or comedic…we’ll see what happens in the editing.
7) The Keeper of the World’s Voice – a 1284 word science fiction short story that thanks to the change in FM rules, I was able to tackle based on an idea I had a couple years before but could not get to gel. Now I have concerns that the idea was in fact novel length (explaining my difficulties) and this is in the same world with the same MC, but with the narrower decision point that a short story needs.
8 ) An untitled science fiction story in progress that I am struggling with because it is based on an idea rather than a character. Those tend to be harder to write for me because they take longer to click into place.