OHMYGOODNESS I can’t believe StoryADay May 2016 is over! I’m relieved, I’m distraught, I’m going to miss checking in every day and seeing all the new stories and new friends appear. BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO END! Here’s the Serious Writers’ Accountability Group, to keep us all together throughout the rest of the year.
Next week I’m running the #7DayStory email course (Write, Revise & Release a short story in a week). More details to come!
And don’t forget STORYFEST 2016 is coming, June 10-12: a celebration of the stories you’ve written and the friends you’ve made. Watch your inboxes for details.
Every month we gather here to discuss what we’ve achieved and commit to making more progress in our creative lives in the coming month. We call it our Serious Writer’s Accountability Group or SWAGr, for short! (We’re serious, not sombre!)
Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.
(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)
Did you live up to your commitment from last month? Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments from last month.
And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!
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Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months
- Write a story a day in May – everyone!
- Revise at least 10 short stories – Iraide
- Write two short stories. – Jami
- Attend one writers’ conference – Julie
- Write fable for WordFactory competition – Sonya
- Re-read the backstory pieces I wrote in May and see if I can use them within my novel – Monique
- Research the market – Jami
- Focus on my serial – Maureen
So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below (use the drop-down option to subscribe to the comments and receive lovely, encouraging notifications from fellow StADa SWAGr-ers!)
(Next check-in, 1st of the month. Tell your friends. )
Don’t forget, if you need inspiration for a story you can still get ALL THE PROMPTS from StoryADay May 2016 and support the running of the StoryADay challenge at the same time. (I’m really proud of this year’s collection!) Give a little, get a little 
Click here. Now only $2.99
I was able to get off to a good start, but between being sick and some issues in the family, my progress ended early on. I was able to pull back around and get some more work done. I am currently in the process of transferring my hand written stories to my laptop. One story I thought was done isn`t, so I need to finish that one up. All told, once I get my writing transferred to typing, I will have eleven finished short stories. My goals for June are to finish getting those stories typed and to write a 10 minute play for a contest I want to enter. I have never written a play, but what the heck!
Hey everyone!
So, I didn’t had a good writing month last month. I got to write 14 stories, but most of them I wasn’t able to finish. Life got on the way.
Oh, well.
Next month I plan on writing a short story to enter a local contest and then continue revising my novel and maybe try to make an outline for my next Camp Nano project. Still, I don’t know if I will be able to make enough time, so my goals for this month are kinda low
Happy writing!
Thank you so much, Julie, for Story A Day May! I did fall off in the last week, but I got so much excellent stuff done. (If anyone is interested, I posted most of my efforts at http://notwhereilive.wordpress.com )
I managed to polish one of the early stories into something that I submitted later in the month, so that was great.
I continued on editing work with my cozy-ish mystery novel. And I am working on turning my Camp Nano novel from a couple of years ago into a screenplay. I am doing the 60 day online class from Screencraft (and planning on an in-person screenwriting bootcamp in July).
I also did a great class on crime scene investigation (through the Sisters in Crime Guppy chapter — if you’re interested in mystery/crime writing, it’s awesome for the classes, which are a great deal — https://sincguppies.wildapricot.org/).
So, my plans for June are:
more editing on the mystery
and write a well-tuned first 10 pages of the screenplay.
And any short story ideas that pop up (there was actually a great historical cozy mystery idea I got from one of the prompts that I am very eager to explore further).
Well, I did part of the edits on the short story I wanted to… and got some ideas for other short stories… but my mental health was kicking my butt last month, so I’m counting myself lucky to have survived. Also, I wrote most of a modified outline for a story I might rewrite in July, so that’s something even if it wasn’t what I planned.
In June (which is my birthday month!) I’m going to attempt to:
– Actually write 1-3 short stories, because I’ve had a bunch of cool ideas pile up and I need to actually write them out. If I write 3 I’m going to buy myself ice cream, so hopefully that’ll motivate me. 😀
– Finish the edits on story I’m resubmitting.
– Write the last bit of new outline-ish thing for Elizabeth Crowley, the story I might work on during next Camp NaNoWriMo.
– In non-writing news, I’m going to study math, because I’m going to be taking my SAT this fall. So wish me luck with that.
Sorry to hear the brain was trying to sabotage you. Hope things are picking up on that front.
Good luck with the goals for June.
On the math front: just remember it’s very logical. You’ve got this (and this comes from a former math-phobe)
Hi Maureen,
Just checking in because I didn’t see you post in the July SWAGr and I missed you!
Hope the math studying is going well. It can be very pretty, if you look at it with the right mindset…(She tells herself. I had a math teacher who made me do well one year, mostly by wandering around the class chanting “C’mon! Maths is easy! Maths is fun!”!!)
Story a Day was awesome! It showed me I could write short pieces, even flash fiction if I wanted. My goal is to write 1 submit 1 story every week for the next six months. Thank you Julie!
Hello EVERYONE,
What a wonderful story challenge month. I like that it’s a do it your own way, with some rules. My personal goal was big, because I needed to learn to Complete and to write every single day. I did it, and learned SOO much. I will be checking in to SWAGr (great anocronym) monthly and maybe will decide to do the stories on wednesdays. I want to leave my new stories a lone for a couple of weeks, and work on my novels as well as catch on some other writing tasks. Then when I go back, the plan is to see what I like the best, fix it up, and then look for submission opportunities to match them. Maybe we can talk a bit about submitting and markets a bit also. What do you think, Julie? Bye for now, Linda —- ps working on a nomme de plume, and may have a new one soon.
Hey, I’ll talk about anything you want to talk about!
Well done on kicking the challenge’s butt!!!!
I wrote everyday in May. Some of it I even liked. I was reminded that I love writing short stories. And I have a few I’m going to compile into collection.
June is here and I’m going to write a flash fic a day, all in the same universe.
Hi everyone – I was planning to write a blog post reporting in about my Story A Day experience and my plans for June, but hey – I can comment here as well, right? I enjoyed this challenge but wasn’t anywhere near as successful as some of you, or as I thought I’d be. I’ve never made it through the entire month for this challenge, since I know I need more than a day to finish a story. Still, I wrote 11 stories this month! Some of them are mere fragments of stories, and some are backstory scenes for the novel I’m working on, but many are new. These are the exciting ones (to me): the brand new stories I drafted or started. 9 of the 11 on my list had been living in my head but never made their way to paper until this challenge, so I count that as a huge success.
My plan for June (and the rest of the summer) is to go back to my modified version of the challenge that I did on my own a couple years ago: Story A Week Summer! I aim to dig back into the story fragments started in May, as well as a few others that are moldering in my files, and finish some of these things – and SEND THEM OUT. (Sorry to shout, but I’m trying to get myself to hear it!) Even with a one-week break for a poetry workshop I’m going to in July, I count 12 weeks until Labor Day. So, I’m hoping to have 12 stories DONE by the end of the summer. That’s the goal, anyhow, so wish me luck!
I LOVED story a day this past May! I am ridiculously proud of myself – I managed to write something resembling a story every day 🙂 🙂 🙂
My plans/goals for June: write full backgrounds for the 2 RPG characters I’m playing, and to revise and polish at least 2 of the stories I wrote in May.
I did write every day using the prompts as prompts for a new story or for the development of others I am working on. I did not publish much because I send out my work to various magazines. Most want unpublished work, and many consider work on social media, blogs, etc as published and ineligible. It means reading the submission guidelines with a magnifying glass. But I will continue to work on a few of the ideas generated during May.
Thanks to everyone for their support. Just knowing other people are doing the same thing helps.
Good to know.
I wrote a story a day in May, each story connected to a previous book or story series. My goal this month is to sort them out and start the process of putting together collections as companions to the novels or as stand-alone collections.
Good idea.
I plan to roll my Story A Day success into an outline and 20,000 words on my WIP.
I didn’t write a story every day – I missed about 6 I think (could be one or two more) because of health issues – mine and our little dog who suddenly went blind for seemingly no reason. What I did do, I thoroughly enjoyed. Sadly I won’t be taking part in the June challenge. I need to go back to editing my novel. It’s been lovely meeting so many new people while doing this challenge.
I’m so sorry to hear about your health issues and your little dog’s! I hope both of you are recovering, as much as possible. Under the circumstances, missing just 6 is an impressive accomplishment!
I’m with Marian, Lyn. Wishing you better days ahead- on all levels.
Thanks so much Linda, I appreciate your good wishes 🙂
Thank you, Marian, very, very much.
Last month I said I would “write a 100-word story a day (obviously) and post most of them on the blog. I’ll try to use as many of the StAD prompts, as well” –> I wrote a story a day, I put almost all of them on the blog and I used the prompts for most of them.
Last year in June, I wrote a serial for the blog and I’d like to do it again this month. I’ll have to see if I can come up with something today that might turn into +/- 25-part serial. I’ll start by going through the stories I wrote for StAD 2016.
Go, Sonya!
thanks 🙂
Story a Day helped get my story writer motor going. While I wasn’t able to write every single day, I wrote most days, and appreciated the encouragement and support Story a Day provided. Thank you for that!
Hooray! And thanks for checking in. I love to hear how people got on.