NaShoStoMo

For the past couple of days, I've been itching for something to blog about but nothing has particularly come to mind. Nothing interesting, at least, which was why my last post was about the weather. Last night I was debating whining about the papers I have to write for classes, or the fact that I feel like my writing ability is getting worse (rather than better), or the new library employee policy which says that I'm not allowed to read books on the clock. Or write them, for that matter. But then I struck blogging gold. (Editorial Note: The fact that I'm listening to "Jerk it Out" by The Ceasars seems to make this blogging gold better. Its something about the beat of the song in conjunction with the sun outside which makes me really excited) I was stalking some professional writer's blogs and found Dan Wells (author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, and I Don't Want to Kill You) and discovered that while he's on book tour this month, he is venturing his own NaNoWriMo knock off. Since it's hard for him to novel-write on book tours and because he's terrible at writing short stories, he has decided to do a short story a day for the month of April. And because I'm a writing junkie and like competing in off-the-wall writing challenges, I think this is a marvelous idea. Here's the short list of goals (established by Dan): each story has to be AT LEAST 200 words; each story must have a beginning, middle, and end; by the end of the month, you should have 30 short stories, so it's not necessary to do one short story a day--just have thirty by the end. So my dear blog followers (of whom there are few), I extend the challenge to you. Thirty days, thirty short stories. For all of you who thought a novel was too much to handle, this is much more feasible (and if each story is only 200 words long, you're writing about 44,000 words less than you would during NaNoWriMo). As for me, I'm totally jazzed to find a productive way to continue procrastinating my research papers, school projects, and finals studying. Rock on, writers, rock on.