Chasing Perfection: Reflections on "A Story Every Day" So Far (July Edition)

At last, my day job has eased up a little bit, and I'm able to slow down. It's easier to carve out the time each day to write and really enjoy it.

The Nuts & Bolts

• As of 31st July, it's 213 days in to the yearlong Story Every Day challenge, which started on 1st January.
• My streak is still alive! Making it to the end of the year feels really possible right now!
• My word count for July: 14,614 (I think. If I've counted right.) That's pretty good for me! It includes all my micros, (sans authors notes), my look back at June, an unofficial dollar challenge, a prompt, a recipe, and a review.
• Stats: My monthly peak at my stats shows that my read count stayed pretty steady compared to last month.
• Reads: Just zipped passed 12k!
• My most-read, most-liked piece in July was story #200: A Perfect Evening. It got Top Story, and whizzed up to page 2 of my stats! And got first place on the Vocal Leaderboard for most discussed story. This surprised me, because I didn't think it was all that.
• Top Stories: Three again this month! The others were Sleeping Beauty and I Miss the Auras Most.

This Month I 'Ave Mostly Bin Writin'...

Perfection: I've written three stories with Perfect in the title. This was not intentional and I really should change it up a bit. My approach to naming things is either a flash of inspiration which is, well... perfect.... Or a "meh, that'll do". Some get stuck with their "working title".

Death: Death has dominated this past month. Murder, ghosts, terminal illness, and dying from old age have all featured. Spoiler alert, someone dies in these stories: Road Trip, Pillion, Frayed, The Prepper, Every Detail Perfect, Devil's in the Details, When it Won't Stop Raining, Sand, Fizzy Secret, and Climbing Boys Lament. In I Love My Job and Perfect Evening, no character actually dies, but it's talked about. It happens off-page, if you like. It's also hinted at in Letters From a Fridge. That's THIRTEEN of my micros last month that included death one way or another. Almost half!

Twenty of my micros were written in the first person. That's too many, I think.

Image: The obsession with image has been the theme in River of Hearts and Every Detail Perfect.

I indulged in a spot of World Cup fever with Coming Home.

I did my usual dabbling in dystopia with Recalibration.

The shaggy dog saga continues: Jerry's Bad Fur Day, Seeing Grey, Jealousy & Rage.

Relationships with AI: I've done a couple of epistolaries exploring this topic, The Perfect Boyfriend and Letters From a Fridge

Filthy: I stepped out of my comfort zone and submitted to the Filthy community, but because it's you know, me, we all know it's not going to end well and is probably going to be a bit weird. Please don't read Some Girls!

Crimefic: I had a go at this genre with Devil's in the Details

Series: I did a series, and, unusual for me, I did it in about a week, every day posting an installment following on from the day before. Dreamboat Series.

I wrote two stories based on actual events: I Miss the Auras Most and The Woman With the Soulful Eyes.

Reflection

How am I finding it? The writing part is easy as bleeding at this point. It's the setting aside time to do it that's hard. As grown-ups, we have so many demands on our time.

The last couple of weekends were extremely busy, and I really thought Saturday 27th might be the day it all went to shit... Purely because it didn't seem like there would be enough hours in the day. I still managed to write and post. That was quite a feat with everything going on. I'm proud of me for that. Then this weekend we went away and I thought I might not have internet access. With all the prepping and packing beforehand there wasn't time to get ahead the way I'd have liked to.

What have I learned

If you stab yourself, something aways comes out. Creatives are well-known for their tendency to procrastinate. Waiting for inspiration to strike. Dear reader, dear writer, do not! Just write!

It's hard to pick a favourite this month. Victoria's Secret and Something Crawled Up Your Arse were both a lot of fun. I didn't exactly enjoy writing Climbing Boys' Lament (Can't Eat Dictionaries), but I was pleased with how it turned out. It made me feel a bit unsettled and claustra, with the urge to take lots of deep breaths.

What's next

My goals for next month, besides the obvious (maintaining my story every day streak)...

• Do more reading! Catch up on reads, but also cultivate a daily reading practise as well as a writing one. That has been spotty. I've been reading Dune for months now! (Maybe everybody does? It's a bit.. you know, dry...) August will be the month I finish it, I swear.
• Put more effort into the titles
• Enter more challenges
• I'd like to FINALLY do some book reviews, starting with Paul's
• I'm going to do another movie review, and another piece for Feast
• I haven't done a round-up in ages.
• I'd like to try more horror, and more crime fiction. Suspects and blood and red herrings, oh my!
• Fewer stories in the first person

Here's to another month of scribbling!

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Thank you for reading!