If you have read the introduction in my first book, Fogoyle: A Short Story, then you already know that story started out as a flash fiction challenge. It was given out by Chuck Wending on his TerribleMinds blog. There are some things that you don’t know, why I mention it so frequently, and how I think it might help you.
You see, that challenge from Chuck Wendig, I failed it. I started the story, and it grew, I believe the challenge was 500 words and I had already hit 1,000 and couldn’t narrow it down in time. It was a challenge. I can’t remember what the terms were now, but I can vividly recall being so focused and determined I was and how quickly the story was growing. I can also remember how disappointed I was when the deadline arrived and I had nothing to submit. It was soul crushing.
I moped around for days. I cried, and I kicked myself repeatedly for missing the deadline. I threw a bit of a fit and scrapped the entire story too. There is no evidence of it to be found anywhere. No notes, no nothing. I think I chucked the whole notebook out the truck window as we were rolling down the road.
I had a conversation about it with my son a few days later and in his infinite wisdom as a 23 year old, suggested that I do my own challenge. He helped me out with it and gave me the first actual challenge. It looked something like this.
Write a 500 word story about a weather phenomenon.
Bonus points if you include 7 colors and a strange voice.
You have 24 hours. Go!
Fogoyle: A Short Story was conceived over the next 2 hours. It was 500 words dead on and it had a beginning, middle, and an ending. I put it away, satisfied that I had completed the challenge. It was a great little story, maybe one day something might come of it, but for now, it went into the archive and was forgotten.
What I think you should know is what came after that win. It wasn’t a bowl full of cherries. There were a lot of bumps that came up between it being written and being published. Firstly, there was a novel I’d been hyping for months that had a set publication date. It went for final edits and the editor found a major problem that was going to take more than a couple of weeks to fix. Everything I had done had to be pulled down, taken back, and I had to notify a buyer that they would not be receiving their copy on release day. It was devastating to say the least. Then I got the phone call that my grandmother had died. I went to the funeral and found out my mom was really sick and she needed my help. That novel got completely put on hold.
Things got settled but I wasn’t making any progress as a writer. I had set a goal to publish something and I missed it, but I wasn’t about to go down without a fight. So, I went through my archive to see what I had that wouldn’t take months to polish and publish. I didn’t care if it didn’t sell well, I wanted to use it to learn the process of publishing, let it get messed up, figure out how to fix it, and go on, before I tried to publish a novel again. I found that piece of flash fiction, padded it to a good short story length and sent it off to a few beta readers who loved it but wanted more. I laughed them off because I just wanted it to be good enough to sell a few copies. Fogoyle: A Short Story was born!
A month later, after hearing the cries of readers chanting “we want more!” Fogoyle: A Short Story Two was born. Same process, but much quicker. It took a while for Fogoyle: A Short Story Three to come out, but that was literally because I couldn’t nail down the venue. Once I did, the words flowed, the story came out, and it was published in a matter of months, a year later. This is why challenges, and failing them, are important. If I had succeeded with that first challenge, it would have been an amazing story, but it would have been out. I couldn’t have done anything else with it. One small piece of the world would have read it, might have enjoyed it, but that would have likely been the end of it.
The way things have gone I’ve gotten way more out of that one failure. Three books in that thread have been published. A fourth is in progress and should be out in October and it’s not a short story! That novel that had to be pulled? Yeah, that’s coming out next month! And there is another book scheduled to release at the end of the year!!! I have fans that have become friends, and the best part is that THEY keep me writing. They message me, email me, and/or send me letters telling me how they didn’t think much of it when they read it, but it’s foggy where they are today and it made them think of me.
That has made every bit of it worth it. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I really want to be for someone, what Chuck was for me. I’m eternally grateful to him and he isn’t even aware of how he has touched my life and made me who I am, because I never submitted the story and have not made a peep on the blog since. One day, I’ll be in the same place he is at the same time and I’ll be able to shake his hand and say thanks. In the mean time, I want to give a challenge to you. You have no idea how far it will take you until you look back and see how far you’ve come.
The challenge is this:
Write a 100 word story (no more, no less) about dreams.
You’ll get bonus points if you include the color green, fear, and potatoes.
You have 24 hours. Go!
Show me what you’ve got in the comments. I’ll feature the one that implements all of the above elements (dreams, the color green, fear, and potatoes) in 100 words exactly on my weekly flash fiction newsletter. You can sign up for the weekly Flash Fiction Challenge Newsletter and get more challenges, see my stories and the featured stories of the winner of the previous challenge, rewards and other goodies!
Good luck to you! These challenges are not for the faint of heart. If you have any questions, use my contact page to drop me an email.
Such a good idea with the newsletter!