"What??" you say. "Submit it without getting any crits??"

That's the idea. The theory is that you can learn a lot just by writing a story. Many of us (myself included) sit on stories forever, either tinkering with them or wringing our hands wondering how the heck to revise them. So the point of this exercise is to get you writing and to get you submitting.

To that end, I'm going to make the rules a little flexible. Here's how it will work officially:

• Each week I'll post something in the Writing Challenges section.
  
• Sign up in the Writing Challenge section at the beginning of the week by saying you're in the challenge.
  
• Go write your story.
  
• At the end of the week, sign in again with the title of your story and where you submitted it to.
  
• Rinse and repeat for as long as this works for you.
  

At the end of the week we'll applaud those who kept their commitments with a smilie face. I'll keep a running list of people who maintain this pace over a length of time.

The unofficial rules:
If you absolutely can't stand the thought of submitting a story without having someone look over it, then slow the pace to every two weeks, or a month, maximum.

If this sounds more like something you can do, then sign in and put "two weeks" or whatever your chosen cycle is by your name. You will then have that alloted time to write your story.

However... the key is to do this regularly. So even if you choose a month for your time period, you should try to maintain that pace. This is not a challenge for occasional submittals. Stories that have been languishing on your shelf for the past few months that you feel like brushing off don't count for this challenge. You must write new material.

How's this sound, folks?

(and I'm thinking now, oh boy, what the heck have i gotten myself into??)

Edited to fix list thingie.

quote:

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Maybe space aliens really are using a brain neutralizer on my creativity.

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If that's okay, I'll sign up this week to finish by Sunday, then again for the third week.

I might delay too, we'll see how the first draft goes.

Stories take time to polish and tighten, even if they aren't being externally critiqued (and frankly, again, even if you're an established pro you should still have readers, if not full critiquers, before you submit; an external sense check nebver hurts).

It's good to set yourself targets, certainly, but quantity does NOT trump quality. Targeting a story a month to a pro market, that's fine.

That's a success in my book.

If we call anything that doesn't result in publishing a failure, then, well, all I have done is fail. And I've been failing a long time.

Mailing lists online are pretty effective and are normally free. It shouldn't be hard to get one sponsored somewhere. I think even Yahoo will host something like this.

Writing stories and submitting without critique is a time honored tradition, used by authors including Stephen King, Jane Austen, and, I believe, OSC. Is it the best way? Who can say? One could argue both ways. Maybe they would have had more stuff published earlier if they had gotten people to critique their stuff. On the other hand, maybe they wouldn't have developed into the writers they did if they had had it critiqued. Maybe they wouldn't have developed the voice that they had. I might be better; it might be worse.