Dean Wesley Smith and Writing Often

  by  Robert Couse-Baker 

First off, let me say that if you haven't become familiar with the blog/website of Dean Wesley Smith then you are missing out! This guy is amazing. (Although maybe that's just the writer-ENTP in me going - "I get it!") I haven't read his short stories yet, but plan to. You can find his site here: http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/. If you know me, you know that I love setting goals for myself, even if I can't always achieve them. To see another writer set - and meet - logical, prolific goals is inspiring. It also makes me feel a bit less crazy for all the writing I do and plan to do on a daily basis.

Anyway.

His site first caught my eye when a google search about writing short stories came up with his post entitled, "A Short Story Per Week", which he posted in June 2008. In it, he outlines the original challenge that he and fellow author Nina Kiriki Hoffman attempted. He writes,

The “Secret” is simply this:

1) Write one short story per week.
2) That week mail that short story to the top paying market you can find.
3) Then repeat the following week.
4) When the story comes back with a rejection, send it to the second best market without looking at the story again. Keep all the stories in the mail.
5) Continue weekly for one year. At the end of the year, chances are you will have a bunch of rejections, but no sales if you are sending your stories up high. But keep working on your craft, your skills, working to make every story better. And keep all the early ones in the mail without looking at them.
6) Start a second year, and by the time the second year is finished, you will be selling short fiction to professional magazines.

The good news is that short story markets are on the rise, especially thanks to ebook publishing, I would think. Or maybe busy lifestyles. I don't know. Either way, now is a great time to try this challenge.

I think I also like this post of his because this paragraph really resonates with me and what I wrote earlier about making time to write. Dean says,

"But let me say this. I WANTED to be a writer, and was damn tired of just talking about it and doing nothing. So I made decisions, I carved out the time, I wrote any time and any place I could. And at the same time, I was teaching myself to type and spell and all that stuff, since I had almost finished three years of law school and could do none of that. Stunning but true. So my learning curve was steep and needed to happen fast. I did not quit any job, just carved out the time."

Exactly!! I am not quite sure what is going on with some fiction writers I see that aren't actually writing (or even reading, for that matter). I don't think many of them would want to know the number of words I write per day (thousands, if you count just my articles and blog posts). The key to being a writer is actually writing. What other art form has its practitioners saying, "Oh, I want to be a [musician, painter, etc..]" and then for other artists to be perfectly content with sympathizing when said artist never actually practices the art he/she claims to love so much. Yeah, only in writing circles does this happen! I really don't get it. No, I'm not a published fiction author yet. But I will be. And it will be because I want it to happen, and not because I am waiting around for someone to notice me/waiting to be perfect/revising the same damn thing 100 times/etc.

I don't have time for that.

So here's what I want to do. I want to try this challenge. I do have books in my head. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots of stories. More than I think I could ever write, frankly. So this would be perfect. The first two ideas in my head are short stories, so I can hammer them out quickly. The next idea I have is a novel, so I might either change the rules or just add the novel into the mix.

Is anyone interested in seeing if I can meet this goal? Should I post the results here on this post? For example, if I wrote the week and what I wrote, its submission status (submitted, published, etc)?

Anyone willing to join me?

Edit: And while I'm thinking about it, I wanted to add that he has a newer post on how to go about doing this: http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=8272.

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