Last week, I stumbled upon StoryADay, a creative challenge where you write a short story a day. I was immediately intrigued.

If you don’t know, I’ve always wanted to write, but it seems like I spend more time reading about writing, creating half-finished outlines and wishing I was writing than actually writing. So this was the perfect call-to-action for me.

What’s more, the challenge is starting in May and I’m currently on my school break. The timing is impeccable. No excuses.

What is StoryADay?

Essentially, it’s a challenge where you must write (and finish!) one short story every day during the month of May/ September. For more information, check out the StoryADay website.

There’s an entire community for participants, but I decided not to join for my first attempt. But I know accountability is very important, which is why I’m writing this here!

Why do this? Should you join too?

It’s shameful to admit, but I just don’t have enough self-discipline. Especially when it comes to writing. I’ve joined NaNoWriMo (annual event where writers attempt to write a finished novel in a month in November) three times now and surprise, surprise, did not win any of them. By the end of the month, I had only random chapters written and half-fleshed characters. Yay.

I thought StoryADay is one way to commit to writing stories daily, if novel-writing seems like one step too far for me. Even if I failed to write 31 short stories by the end of May, I’ll have tons of ideas and maybe four short stories. That’s worth more than a blank page. Or else, jump on the bandwagon if you’re looking for fun ways to challenge your inner writer!

The Rules

Here’s the fun part: you can participate in the challenge on your own terms. All I did was sign up for an email list to receive writing prompts. Even then, I don’t even have to use them if I don’t want to.

I decided to lay down some ground rules, some of which I’ve stolen from the original ones, others I’ve created for myself.

1. 31 stories in May. You don’t have to write everyday for this challenge. It’s okay to have Wednesdays or Sundays off. Or maybe your goal is to write one longer short story a week. That’s fine. Me? I’m going (pretty) hardcore with 31 stories this month.
2. Short stories must be complete and finished. I don’t have a problem starting a story, what’s hard is finishing them. So for this challenge, I have to write a short story from start to finish (beginning, conflict, resolution). No halflings, no mere fragments of a story.
3. One new story a day, even if I miss a day. Which means if I ever miss a day (cross my fingers I won’t), I shouldn’t go back and try to finish it on the next day. I have to move on and start afresh.
4. No word limits. 30 words or 3000. As long as it’s a story and takes the characters somewhere, the length doesn’t matter. I know I’m going away for a few days this month, so not having minimum words will not allow for excuses. I can easily whip up 100 words on my phone on a car ride.
5. Rewards and consequences. This is how I know it’s real. If nothing is at stake, if there’s no pleasure to receive and no pain to avoid, it’s harder to push yourself. At least, this is true for me. Here’s how this works. For every two day that I miss, I’m losing 1 reward (the sequence goes from #3 to #1) and getting 1 consequence (from #1 to #3). I’m not setting only 1 reward / consequence to prevent discouragement if I indeed skip a day. I can get away with missing just one day. But let’s say, I miss two or three days. That means I’m getting only reward #1-#2 and consequence #1. Four or five off days are reward #1 and consequence #1-#2. So on. And if I miss more than six days… Let’s say June is not going to be a fun month for me 🙂

Rewards

Technically, I can enjoy all of these rewards without even completing the challenge. But for the sake of motivation and what-not, the only way I can get these stuff in June is by earning it. No writing, no pleasure.

1. 31 completed short stories and bragging rights. It sounds silly, but I think the sense of accomplishment is the most important reward. Besides, 31 short stories (shitty as they might be) are more than I would’ve written otherwise.
2. Treat myself to a massage. Not getting this bit will blow, because I’m spending two weeks in Bali in June. For those of you who know, Bali is the perfect place to get a massage.
3. Mega book haul. I’m talking all of the guilty pleasure YA books that I’ve been wanting (not the literary classics I’m attempting to tackle).

Consequences

It’s important that these “punishments” should not make me feel bad about myself. If you’re ever adopting this method, the consequences shouldn’t be something that makes you hate yourself.

1. Failure. As much as the sense of achievement is a strong reward, failure is as hard as a blow to the gut.
2. Disabling YouTube on my phone for a month. There was a period when I’d spend hours everyday just mindlessly watching videos. Though it doesn’t happen much nowadays, I still love my entertainment. Also, a two-week relaxing vacation without YouTube? Oh no.
3. Publish all of the unedited written stories. I hope it won’t come down to this, because I hate sharing my unedited work. But to prove my commitment, it’s got to be said first. I’m still not sure about the platform yet, but it’s going to be either DeviantArt or Wattpad. I’ll share a link on my blog.

Follow My Progress

I’m going to be writing a blog post each week to update my progress. Maybe I’ll share some stories. Who knows? Anyway, let the writing begin!

Ps. If you want to join the challenge, comment down below. Even if it’s not May anymore when you decide to write a story a day, I’ll still be interested to hear about it!

Note from future Erica: Check out a short story I wrote that month here.