Recently Armand Rosamilia and I were talking and he planted a seed in my mind about writing a short story, featuring my main character Ike, for a local event here in Flagler Beach called The Inspired Mic.
The Inspired Mic is basically an open mic night for authors, and Armand thought it would be a good idea for me to read a new short story rather than an excerpt from one of my existing novels.
I agreed and wrote the story. It was an Ike Christmas story, and I had fun writing it.
It was very well received, and I enjoyed writing it so much that I wrote another one (just for fun, I told myself) about New Year’s Eve.
After the second one was done Armand suggested writing one for each of the holidays and releasing them in an anthology. I thought it was a good idea and since there were a couple of months before the next holiday (St. Patrick’s Day) I returned my focus to my current work-in-progress – a novel with the working title Protect This.
Then, a few days later, somebody posted a quote from Ray Bradbury on facebook that threw a wrench into my gears.
The quote said “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”
It appealed to me for a few reasons;
- It could be a nice weekly distraction from writing a novel
- It would be an extension/improvement of Armand’s idea
- It would help me learn more about Ike and share it with his fans
My plan was simple: Each week I would write the short story on Saturday, leaving me Sunday and any free weeknights for working on the novel.
Saturday morning I sat down at the computer with the idea for my weekly short story and started writing. After 7 hours I was ready to quit and watch some TV but the story was only 2/3 finished.
No problem…I’ll finish it up first thing in the morning and then dive into the novel.
Not so much…
It took me the better part of Sunday to finish, and by the time I was done I just didn’t have the mental energy to change gears and work on the novel.
So here we are three weeks later and my novel is in a holding pattern – but I’ve written three good stories for the anthology – so I’ve got that going for me.
I’ve also got a cool idea for story number four…and I had an idea for a cool quasi-horror short story…
I may need to cancel my cable TV account.
As always – thanks for reading
blindoggbooks 