A Year (or Two) in Review

A Brief History of Writing

“Happy Holidays!” - Acrylic, glitter, and stickers on paper. My 3 year old son, 2022.

Several years ago, a friend asked if I wanted to try NanoWrimo. She knew the story of my one big published (but kind of forsaken) story¹ and thought I would be a good person to have cheering her on. I wrote two pages towards a novel. She also didn’t get very far. But two years ago? She finished a first draft!

Around the same time, a buddy from college reconnected. We were both stay-at-home dads during the pandemic. We forwarded each other podcasts and encouraged each other to pursue our art for art’s sake.² I committed to writing a piece of flash fiction once a month, a goal I mostly met. My fingers loosened up. I shrugged off flash fiction and wrote longer pieces. I started this Substack to have an online presence.³ I keep talking about writing a novellette! Or a novella! Then a novel!⁴

But, honestly? I’m proud of all the writing I’ve done this year. I’ve mostly stuck with my goal of a story a month. Now that I’m no longer road-tripping across the country, I sometimes write two stories a month! So, I’m confident that going forward, I can continue writing at least one story a month, and add the goal of writing a novella as well.

For this Substack? I’ve realized I can only be honest with sharing my memoirish stories if I change all the names and make stuff up, so I’ll keep doing that, but with some longer serialized arcs. I hope to write some more focused essays about writers who have influenced me and how.⁵ I hope to add some book review/recommendation pieces.⁶ I’m looking forward to trying some collaborations with other Substackers!

So, year in review? Pretty good. The future? I imagine good things!

Thanks for reading! I hope I’ve made you smile. (And if you’re my kids fifteen or so years from now, I hope that if you think I was weird - how could you not? - I hope you think I was an admirable weird).

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And now? Some math! Also? Story titles to tease you!⁷ Okay, I jest. Honestly, this next part is more for me, so I can look back when the novella seems daunting and point out it should be easier since presumably the voice and tone won’t change with each month.

New Stories Written in 2021

A Sad Song In An Empty Room - 1500
Love Is A Mystery - 1450 Words
Anatomy of a Killer - 1100 Words
No Kisses During Campfire - 1500 Words
Laughter That Burns - 1400 Words
One Parent Survives - 1000 Words
Without You Everything Falls Apart - 1550
Remembering Halloweens Past - 2200 

2021 Total: 11,700 Words

New Stories Written in 2022

The Thing - 1870 Words
You and I - 2220 Words 
Best Werewolf Transformation Footage I’d Ever Seen. Who Wouldn’t Swipe It? - 4000  The M-Team: 3200 Words 
William Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure (More Sex More Ghosts) - 2000  Headache - 3370                                           
The Sower of Doubt -5030  
Help Wanted: 2130 
Maggot Attack - 2080

2022 Total: 25,880 Words

Yeah. I’m impressed.

1. Which I will tell you soon, someday.

2. He, his music. Me, my writing.

3. One of the places where I wanted to submit a story shared a blogpost about the need for aspiring writers to be searchable and findable online.

4. Sadly, I’ve been here before. Way back in 2007, I was writing a short story a month because at the time, Chuck Palahniuk was critiquing 5 stories a month selected by editors of his old website when it used to host a writer’s forum (which eventually became litreactor.com).

5. Coming soon: “Dostoevsky and Me”

6. Essentially, subjective reflections, or a current version of “[Author] and Me”

7. I remember way back when I was a Smashing Pumpkins fan, I had the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness singles lunchbox and the Zero single included a collage of snippets from 40 or so unreleased songs, but Billy Corgan had named them all and listed them all and little junior high / high school me always wanted to hear them. Having a name made them real, even though they weren’t available.