Day 282 - Promise to Yourself

 PROMISE TO YOURSELF

Prompt - Promise to Yourself : Write about a promise you want to make to yourself and keep

2021 has been my best year for writing.  The 365 challenge has pushed me most days, and although I've not managed to produce something for every single one, I have written more stories, and poems, that I ever have in my life before.  Despite having wished I could write since my teenage years.  Despite having attended a creative writing course in 1988, and writing several stories then.  And despite my attempt at 'therapy after my breakdown in which I even went on a journey to Skegness simply to try and get a story out of it (which I did, but never managed to complete it).  So the 365 Challenge has been by far the most successful of all my efforts.

Which leads me to my promise, which is to not let that progress fade away.  If 2021 was my year for writing very short stories - few reach a thousand words - 2022 must be the year where I produce longer works.  That will mostly be short stories, but of three, four, or five thousand words.  Or, if I'm really making the effort, an attempt at a novella.  But these are fairly vague notions, so I'm going to go into detail, and come up with something that will be a kind of outline plan to put, and keep, me on the right course.

Step One is to complete the 365 challenges I missed out on this year.  At present there are nine subjects on the list, and I am determined it shouldn't slip beyond a dozen.  (There have been a few others, but I've managed to catch up on some of them.)  Which means my first 750s of 2022 will be used completing the days I missed out on.  

While I'm doing this I need to begin on Step Two, which is to read three or four about being a writer, and see what lessons I can learn.  I need to try and take that as a serious exercise, aimed at improving the way I writer and come up with ideas.  

Then I need to look at writing some longer stories, which is where Step Three begins.  It seems sensible to return to some of the ideas I has twelve years ago, when I had the breakdown.  There were four stories based around train journeys, three of them slightly twisted love tales, two had a fair bit written by were never completed, the others have only a few notes, but the basic concepts are still in my mind.  The first of them, based on the trip to Skeggie, will have to be rewritten from scratch, as Barbara found it hard to identify with either of the central characters.  The other was more promising and she wanted to know what came next.  Me too!

Step Four, which can start a bit later, but run in parallel to Three, is to share some of my 2021 stories, from Bits and Pieces, on writing websites where writers can read and criticise one another.  I might not like the feedback, but I must look at it as a way to get better.

And Step Five, if I can keep the above going and feel I've achieved things, is to try to write a novella about the guy who can be in two places at once.  That would be really stretching myself.

Finally, I should have mentioned Step Zero, which is for this year - get on with editing some of the stories I have written, and add them to my Bits and Pieces blog, let a few people have a read.  Who knows, I might get a reaction one day?

That's the promise.  To end 2022 with a few longer short stories, to have shared some of my better pieces with other writers, and to have at least begun to try and write something more ambitious.  Despite my long history of failure I have more confidence than ever before that I can really start to move on.  The 365 Challenge will only have been really worthwhile if I do.