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

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 3/24/2021 Production Report:

Words for the week 3/17-3/23 6579

Hours for the week 3/17-/23 33

Cumulative through 3/23

Words – 111308

Hours – 440

Stories 10 out of 52

(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. )

Analysis

Not the most productive week. I should have 454 hours of creative time by the 23rd, but am now 14 behind. I have been hiking the past two weekends, so instead of racking up 8-10 creative hours on Saturday, I have spent the same amount of time commuting to and hiking at the state park. But that has been a significant stress reliever, and sometimes you have to get your hiking boots dirty, right? And then Sundays have been more about the day job the past few weekends. But it’s still early in the year, and I can catch up fairly easily. The big concern is that I should be writing story 15 this week, and I am still fighting story 11. (Story 12 is a rough draft as well.) Hopefully, I can finish both this week, and I can write 13 on the weekend (no hiking at the state park this weekend.)

I did read two novels this week, City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert and Being Christian by Marji Mendelsohn. And I am about halfway through Still Writing by Dani Shapiro. I am trying to get novels in before I start with the short story challenge next month.