The Great Challenge – Week 3

I’ve been doing The Great Challenge with Dean Wesley Smith for three weeks now.

I’ve mentioned it before, but as a reminder the challenge is to write a short story a week for 52 weeks. Stories are due to Dean by midnight Sunday each week. I plopped $600 down as incentive to give myself skin in the game. No matter what if I don’t get all 52 stories done that $600 will go toward credit for his workshops, and since I go to a lot of workshops with him and Kris in Vegas, no money lost there. If I get 26 weeks of stories done, I get another $300 in credit for workshops. If I succeed in doing all 52 weeks, I get a lifetime pass to the workshops.

And I get a ton more stories written than I would have done without the challenge. So it’s a win either way.

But I know for a fact I can do a short story a week on deadline, for many weeks in a row. I’ve done it three years in a row for the Anthology Workshop. So I have no doubt I am capable of going the distance. And that’s the goal.

It’s three weeks into the challenge, and I’m going strong. Here’s what I’ve done to date:

1. Week 1 – 3,800 word short Romance (first one I’ve ever done) called Red Orchid
2. Week 2 – 14,200 word fantasy called Debts and Obligations
3. Week 3 – 4,800 word silly modern fantasy/weird story called Naughty and Nice

I went ahead and indie published the first one. More on that below.

The second is out on submission to the various markets. Already got rejected by Beneath Ceaseless Skies and F&SF. I’ll be sending it out again tomorrow, but I’m thinking it might be good for Writers of the Future. Have to wait until July for that though, since I’ve already submitted to this quarter’s contest.

I’ll be submitting the third to the markets as well later this week.

So it’s been a good start. I feel confident about the challenge going forward, and I’ll be starting this week’s story tomorrow.

If you want to read the first one, Red Orchid, you can buy it everywhere in print and ebook.

George looks for his press contact, to blow the whistle on ethical issues at work.

Karen looks for her girlfriend, to patch things up after a fight.

When a mistake puts them together, their evening becomes much more interesting than either of them anticipated.

I also made an audiobook, which is in the process of distributing worldwide. For now, it’s only up on Google Play and Apple but give it a few more days and you should be able to find it wherever you go for Audiobooks.

And of course the ebook and print versions are available direct from my SSN Storytelling webstore. Audiobook soon to follow there as well.

Enjoy!