Shedding some light on "Short of the Week"

#brannon #challenge #shortoftheweek #writingchallenge #writingprocess

Brannon here. I've got lots of folks asking me about this Short of the Week thing (Ima calls it an Initiative --I'm not sure if I would be that formal with it, but you know Ima...), so I thought I would take a moment and explain it a bit more. Not that the concept itself is that hard to understand: write, edit, and publish one new short story a week, complete with a swanky cover and rocking blurb.

Not that hard to understand, but really, really hard to do.

That's at the root of why I'm doing it, I think. You see, over the past several weeks I've been doing a lot of soul searching, prayer, and deep thought about what I should be doing in terms of my writing. Where I need to be going, and what I need to be focusing on. The long and short of the answer I came up with was pretty simple and terrifyingly pointed.

I needed to be doing more.

I've known, deep down, for some time now that I need to be producing many more words per day than I am. I've known, deep down, for some time now that I've been finding other things to fill my "free time". I've known, deep down, for some time now that I really need to focus on building my back list, as well as continuing to produce quality stuff within the series and swim-lanes that I've already begun. I've also known, for a LONG TIME, that if I am not accountable to anyone, then my work WILL languish.

That's one of the reasons why Four Fools is so good for me. I know that EVERY MONTH, there are lots of other awesome writers who are waiting on me to do my part so a new work can be produced. Granted, my part might be small -- it might some marketing text needed to promote a new book; or maybe some proofreading that needs doing -- or, it could be major like a cover, or a complete low-level edit of a maunscript. Regardless, I am beholden to my friends and fellow writers to produce.

So, I thought, what if I took this to the next level? What if I made myself beholden to my direct customers? Dare I say, "Fans"? No, I don't think I have any of those just yet. Regardless, what if I set something up so that if I fail and I don't do what I'm going to say I'm going to do, then it will be a most critical Crash and Burn scenario.

Crazy?

You betcha.

Hard.

You have no idea.

So, that's what I'm doing. Each week, I'm going to post a Google+ poll and I'm going to let the folks who participate decide my direction. I'm signing up now to produce a short story a week. I can only pray hard and work my buns off to make sure I do it. I can already tell you that it's much, much harder than I'd ever envisioned...

But, I'm loving it.

I welcome you to join me each week and to tell others about what I'm doing. Everyone that joins in on the polls gets that short for free, so there's a built in carrot. ;) Here are the first two weeks' posts, so you can kinda know what to expect.

http://www.fourfoolspress.com/2015/08/short-of-week-1st-week-of-september-2015.html
http://www.fourfoolspress.com/2015/08/short-of-week-2nd-week-of-september-2015.html

Who knows? Maybe this will spur some of you on as well. Maybe you've been passing the buck on something that you know, deep down, that you need to be doing. My prayer is that this will inspire, entertain, and involve a whole bunch of you.

Oh, and some of you have mentioned that you hope this will not detract from my series and the development of the worlds within those series. You won't have to worry...just wait and see. I've got something very special lined up for that particular concern.

I think you'll like it...
(Technically, I've already started this little part of my plan here.)

See you soon,
Brannon