Small stories about love

In June 2010, in search of an exercise that would extend both the discipline and craft of my writing practice, I decided to attempt to write a new and unique story every day for a year and a day. That length of time seemed suitably absurd and had just the hint of 1001 nights about it. I published the first story on July 1, 2010.

On July 1 2011 I achieved what I’d set out to achieve.

I continue to post (though more occasionally now) new storiese as well as edited versions of the original stories. I am also publishing a professional writing blog at smatter.blog.com.

Following is the post I used to announce the completion of my original project…

When I published the first of these stories, on this site on July 1, 2010, my aim—it seemed an absurd one at the time—was to write and publish a new story every day for a year and a day. With the publication of today’s story I reach that goal. Thanks to all the readers, subscribers and supporters who have been part of the process, including my family, Polly and Thomas, for their forebearance. This project has taught me much about writing and about persistence. I hope it has made me a better writer.

I have other writing projects that have not been getting the attention they deserve. I hope to be able to dedicate more time to them now. But I also want this site to remain active. I’ll continue to publish new stories whenever I have them. And when I don’t (because I’m no longer going to torture myself to get them the way I’ve sometimes had to over the past year) I’ll revisit the story originally published on the corresponding date. If it is in need of editing then I will polish it and republish. If it is already reasonably polished I’ll treat it in one of the following ways; I’ll republish it with illustrations, republish it in a different format (such as prose poem or concrete poetry), or I’ll publish it as an audio file. I hope, in this way, I can keep this page alive and interesting. If, as a reader of this site, you have any other ideas you’d like explored as part of this project please let me know.

As well as refocussing on other writing projects (particularly two half-finished novels), I hope to prepare a collection of these stories for submission for publication. I’d also love to explore the performance possibilities of these stories. There’s never enough time, of course, but by relaxing my self-imposed rules about this site I hop to get a little of mine back. Thanks for supporting Small Stories about Love

– Richard

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