Writing Challenge - 52 Stories

Two days ago, while scrolling through my twitter feed, I caught a glimpse of the following tweet by a new online writing friend Erica Cresswell:

A short #story per week for a year?I'll take that challenge #RayBradbury#amwriting
— Erica Cresswell (@Ericatweetheart) April 23, 2012

I thought to myself, that's a pretty great idea.

A little while later, Erica sent me a tweet just seeing how I was doing and we starting talking about her challenge. As the conversation continued, I realized I was getting more and more excited about this idea. I was saying things like, "I should do that," then the reality of, "I've got nothing to lose" hit until finally...

@ericatweetheart I'm tempted. There really is no reason NOT to, right? Alright! WHY THE HECK NOT! #amwriting
— Nicole Rivera (@riverand) April 23, 2012

And that was it, I added a new challenge and goal to my list for my writing life: I will write one story per week for one full year. I figured, with Erica by my side and our twitter pact of committing to this challenge, I could do this.

I was inspired. I was ready. I even had a short story for the week that I could work on to get going already.

And then twitter happened... 

If you are a twitter user, then you may have an idea of what I am talking about. You see, while Erica and I are having a conversation, all of our followers can see it. So, just as we were settled upon moving on to write, the questions started pouring in:

• Is this a new thing?
• Can I join?
• What's the word count goal?
• What's the accountability?
• Are there prompts?

...and on and on and on. It was amazing! I don't think either one of us expected it. However, here we are, two days later, using the #52stories hashtag to communicate on Twitter with a nice little group of people who are joining this challenge.

The rules?

Really, we have none. Anyone can join (how could we stop you?!). Our goal is to write. If we put a limit on word counts so that the stories are blog-friendly, then those participants who are looking for print publication will be left out. We don't have prompts because we have ideas of our own that we are willing to explore for the moment. When we do need them, well, StoryDam has a prompt every week, and one of our participants, Greg W. (@HauntedAxiom), has been tweeting prompts he comes up with using the #52stories hashtag.

As for accountability, we are in the process of selecting a day of the week where we will post our stories online, but we have also been keeping each other updated through and through via Twitter. Erica said she finished her story last night and I finished my first draft.

Honestly, it really is quite exciting. It isn't taking away from editing my novel or my concrit class on SavvyAuthors. When it comes down to it, this is what I should be doing with my time, anyway. So it's back to the editing table for me!

I hope everyone in Round 2 of ROW80 has had the blessing of such inspiration in their week as well. Click Here to check out how my fellow ROW-ers are doing with their current writing goals!