10 stories, 10 weeks

I'm going to write 10 sword-and-sorcery short stories in the next 10 weeks and put them on Amazon.

Story 1: Due 18 Jan 2015

Last year I read about someone who decided to create a website every day for 180 days, even though she'd never written a line of code before, and then did that.

As someone who's whined about wanting to be a writer for decades that blows me away.

So every week for the next 10 weeks I'm going to write a sword-and-sorcery short story from scratch and publish it on Amazon.

That might not sound like much. For some people it's not. But to have 10 stories on Amazon by the end of March will be something I'll be proud of.




These are the rules:

1. each week starts on Monday at 1 minute past midnight and ends at midnight the following Sunday, Australian Eastern Standard Time
2. "short story" means from 4500 to 5000 words
3. "from scratch" means I start each week with zero words of the story written
4. "published" means submitted to Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing by the end of the week
5. each story will be a complete, ready to market ebook, as polished as I can make it, including a cover image
6. after each story I'll post a companion blog post about the process here, either in the week of writing or the week after it

   
Riders:

1. the stories will all be a linked collection inspired by Harold Lamb's Swords From The West and set in the dark ages/crusades/sword-and-sorcery world of Dis.
2. I'm doing the covers myself. This isn't part of the rules per se but I can't justify the cost of 10 covers for 50,000 words. So I've downloaded Photoshop on a free 30 day trial and I'm teaching myself to use it.
3. the covers don't have to be done from scratch each week, just the stories. If I can do any covers before I start work on the story, I will.
4. the writing and covers don't have to be without flaw. They just have to be something I'm not ashamed of and that I can finish in the timeframe. One of the major reasons behind this project is accepting that the perfect is the enemy of the good and so on.
5. I already have names and outlines for the 10 stories, I just haven't started writing any of them.

Wish me luck.

Timetable

Project Start: Monday 12/01/15
Project End  : Sunday 22/03/15

      Working Title                    Start On        Submit On
1    The Iron Casque                 12/01/15           18/01/15
2    Black Ctesiphon                 19/01/15           25/01/15
3    The False Sea                     26/01/15            01/02/15
4    Blood Sands                       02/02/15            08/02/15
5    The Palace In The Abyss   09/02/15            15/02/15
6    A Princess Of Loulan        16/02/15            22/02/15
7    Place Of Ruins                   01/02/15            01/03/15
8    The Jade Gate                    02/03/15            08/03/15
9    Gyong Yin Temple              09/03/15            15/03/15
10  Pillars Of Dawn                16/03/15            22/03/15