A Story Every Day in 2024

Promising the Possible is for Noobs

Recently, I wrote about my plan to write a story every day next year.

I also disclosed that I have no stories ready to go at the moment.

I had several supportive comments. There were also several realistic ones. "Impossible!" they said. "I can't commit to that." "Too much pressure." "I'm exhausted already."

You know what?

They're dead right.

For some people, it would be easy. But not for me. Not for a lot of people, it seems.

You know what else?

That's why I'm doing it.

What is the point of promising the possible, darling?

If it wasn't going to be hard, what would be the point?

Quantity + Creativity = Quality

My favourite comment is quoted up there at the top, in the subtitle. I agree completely. I believe it is impossible to churn out that many stories and for them all to be terrible. Next year, I plan to test this theory.

Have you heard the parable about the ceramics class? I saw it floating around on social media and it stuck with me. I did a little digging and apparently it's from a book called Art and Fear. (I haven't read it.)

Here's the story:

A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

The point is, you have to be brave enough to be a bit shit. You have to churn stuff out and keep churning it out.

Keep it flowing

It's like turning on an old, unused tap. Initially, the water might flow slowly, and what comes will be mucky and gross. The pipes creak and groan, rusty muck spatters your sparkling white sink. Keep it going. Let the process itself flush out the crap. It'll start flowing more freely, and more clearly.

It's got to be easier to keep water flowing, clean and plentiful... than to let it sit, and let the pipes rust, and the muck build up.

If you're joining me...

Word count: Stories of at least 300 words, no more than 366.

Going AWOL: There are going to be times when I know I won't have an internet connection, or I'm going on holiday. Let's say I know I'm going to be offline from the 23rd December to the 28th. The plan is to post seven stories on the 22nd. I'll probably put all these in one post, and date each individual story. This will keep my story streak alive until I'm back on the 29th.

Prompts: I don't know if I'll have 366 prompts before 1st January, but I should have plenty to be going on with! I'll post a list of what I have so far on the 31st December. You are always welcome to suggest prompts in the comments. If I use one in a flash fiction piece, I'll tip for it. If I list it, I will credit you so others can tip you for using it as well.

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As always - thank you for reading! Please leave a comment to make it easy for me to reciprocate. If you liked the taste of these words, the very best compliment you can give me is to read some more.

Glass Dolls is out

Some of my fiction:

Or a poem, if you prefer that: