Write-a-Thon 2023

I pledged to write 50 short story drafts in six weeks, at at least 1000 words each. After writing a few under-1000, I decided to count those as 1/3. Sometimes a story has a length and I didn’t want to discount them, but I did want a slight punishment to encourage sticking to the goal.

Writing goal progress:
41/50

In the end I made it to 41, and I’m quite pleased. It was fun! I suffered writer’s block, burnout from a lot of travel, and a bad cold and a twisted ankle, but over all, I think I made some halfway decent first drafts. I feel I wrote a lot more Literary and experimental stories than last time. 31 of 41 were Science Fiction, of course, and 9 Fantasy, with 3 Literary and 2 Horror.

My micros are almost all experiments – writing in future tense, writing an Abecedarian, etc. I did a lot less “finishing off old started drafts” as I’d hoped and actually moved a number of things into my “Garbage” folder to clean out the short stories folder. I had planned to look at previous write-a-thons and revise or re-write some of those stories, but I never did.

Here are the stories I wrote – all titles VERY provisional – asterisks mark under-1000 words, counted as 1/3 for reaching goal.

In a Bubble – 1,940 words – a locked room mystery in the atmosphere of Jupiter, staring Lottie and Xiao from “The Unlikely Heroines of Callisto Station”
Lohen Goes Home – 1,840 words – the youngest swan brother looks for a place to belong after turning back into a human with one swan wing
Domestic – 1,220 words – domestic violence and robots
Velodrome on Mars – 2,700 words – a man dreams of building a velodrome on Mars but finds he can’t do it on his own.
The Entitled Poor – 4,700 words – water scarcity and mutant crocodiles and eating the rich
Edible Universe – 1,760 words – feeding folks in space with limited resources and picky eaters
Under the Skin – 2740 words – Single father faces pressure to enhance his earning potential with experimental implants
* You Will Be Great – 220 words – an experimental micro-flash in future tense
If It Don’t Bleed – 3,630 words – good old space heist story
The Cardboard Cupboard – 1,950 words – a spy with dementia leaves clues for her son
* Fork Yourself – 820 words – What if you could spin off separate selves for different tasks?
Stepmothers and Other Monsters – 2,500 words – a young adventurer sets off to find her “real” mother
Eating Paper – 1300 words – semi-autobiographical with paper fairies
The Woman in the Attic – 2,330 words – a haunted house story
* Which Survivor of the Apocalypse are You? – 680 words – experimental story-as-meme
The Second to Last Death and Final Resurrection of Clockwork Joe, with Recipes – 1,400 words – a sort of clockwork-on-space-colony western?
The Change – 1,240 words – what if you could change your own personality?
Surface Day – 1,690 words – Father-daughter story with elder care and climate disaster
Ocean Sweepers – 1,540 words – Cleaning up ocean plastics and the value of hard work
Three Glasses of Absinthe – 1,400 words – non-genre story – relationships with boys described by changing relationship to liquor
Under the Tree – 2,070 words – a scientist wants to grow an oak tree in space – money vs. exploration
My Killer Robot is a Good Wingman – 1,015 words – Celeste stops Agent A from drunk dialing her ex.
* At the Library of Teeth – 380 words – another experiment – abecederian
The Sleeping God – 4,600 words – space anthropologists vs. religion
Robot Van Winkle – 1,690 words – shopgirl robots rebel
At an Exhibition – 1,400 words – space friends meet at an exhibit of rare “earth art”
Queen Anne’s Lace and Time – 1,440 words – post-apocalyptic literary musing
A Good Man is Hard to Find – 2,200 words – sibling rivalry, romance, and space gas stations
We the Hopeful – 1,020 words – the Borg, but as the good guys
Patriarchy is Bad for Penises – 2,850 words – exploitative male enhancement and strippers to the rescue
Take Me To Your Leaders – 2,030 words – what to do in a future where humanity has no authoritative hierarchy and the aliens want a king?
The Characters Write the Story – 2,120 words – an author encounters a very troublesome character
Vacation on the Shore – 2,960 words – a beach community deals with water scarcity
Just Like You – 1100 words – a girl gets a robot clone, but isn’t happy with it
*Cultural Sensitivity Tips for the Authentic Human Restaurant – 730 words. What it says on the tin.
Necromancy Has Its Limits – 1470 words – a necromancer mechanic deals with parts trouble.
My Dearest Jane – 1140 words – epistolary tale of Austen and Time Travel
Stolen Inspiration – 2,030 words – a witch steals an artist’s inspiration and tries to sell it on eBay
Raised by Wolves – 1090 words – a woman raised by wolves reflects on her own child’s different experiences.
Yo Ho Ho and a Barrel of Oil – 1880 words – Modern sail ship rescues pirates stealing oil
Blank Pages – 2810 words – a sexy gargoyle librarian helps a woman discover her calling
The Landing – 1340 words – a protester and an astronaut hero meet in a bar
Absalom – 1780 words – an uncle deals with his sister’s shaming the family
Landslide – 1150 – A geologist on Mars has issues with terraforming
* The Way of All Sediment – 760 – a geolgist on earth finds evidence of time travel