Here at the Story Factory, we value quantity over quality. 

It’s a lesson that comes from Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland, the story of the pottery class (although I have read the same tale with a photography class.) The class is divided into two groups. One group is assigned to throw as many pots as possible, they will be graded on making high quantities of pots. The second group was assigned only one pot, but it must be perfect. Naturally, the first group, the group making pots like they were going out of style, ended up with the best pots. The second group was a bit paralyzed by the task. I know I would be. The perfectionism would totally be triggered by that. 

So here at the Story Factory, 2021 will be all about the quantity. More words, more hours, more stories. The goal is 52 stories at the end of the year. So far, we are on target. Which, I know, isn’t much to say at this point of the year, but on the other hand, this time last year, I was already behind. So, Wednesdays, we will report production and celebrate the little victories.

Wednesday 1/6/2021 Production Report:

Words for the week 12/30-1/5 – 11,487

Hours for the week 12/30-1/5 – 35.

That includes Morning pages each day, prewriting on either the week’s story or the novel that I am re-writing, and this blog. I only count the short story once, so there is the total for that, and I don’t count the blog on Story Sunday. 

The Hours count is a bit low. The total needed for the month is 168.5, so will need to do a bit more this weekend to bulk it up a bit. But better to know now then scramble with trying to make it up at the end of the month. Since I really need 5.5 a day, rather than 5 a day, I will need to make up about 15 hours on weekends through out the month to make the 2021 in 2021 goal. Again, knowing today will be better than trying to pull all nighters for the month of December, right?

This week’s story is progressing nicely. I was able to get the first scene draft done yesterday and so far, just two characters, with one backstage, but mentioned.  A title would be nice, but that hasn’t occurred to me yet. For novels, I like to have the title up front, but stories, sometimes the best title comes when I am doing the revision and something sticks out to me as yes, that is what this story wants to be called. 

The big question is how to celebrate the little victories today? This is a hard question, I mean, taking the day off sure isn’t the way as then next week there will not be a small win. I think this is something I will need to ponder a while. What does celebrating look like in the time of covid-19, as certainly can’t go out on the town to celebrate. And the weather is going to be crappy today so a nice long celebratory walk isn’t happening. 

 I’m open to any ideas in the comments!