Introduction to a Failed Success of an Experiment

I have decided that I would like more of my writing to at least be accessible to you fine folks who give a damn about it.  Therefore, for the next bunch of months (basically until I run out of material), I will be posting a short story that I have written once a week on this blog.  I will also write personal notes about each short and put them in italics because I'm just classy like that.  I am going to kick off this abuse of your eyes and good taste with several shorts that I wrote for a 52 week challenge that I began and never finished.  The first of these is an introduction that I wrote.  Um, it pretty much speaks for itself and explains why the next 9 or 10 shorts posted were written.  Without further adieu:

This is a futurecast. 

Damned if it isn’t tough to write an introduction for something that doesn’t exist yet.  I’m afraid I’ll leave things out.  Oh well, here goes.

Over the course of the next year, a couple of friends and I will be stretching ourselves to see what we can do.  Each week, 1000 words.  Each week, a new challenge.  You may not read this until we’re done, but it is week one for us, ground zero.  2/26/12 – 3/4/12 is a week of beginnings.  A week of introductions.

 The idea for this sprang up one day about a week and a half ago when I was coming home from work.  I was attempting to think of a way to make myself write more actively.  I figured, a weekly deadline would help, but I’ve been known to blow those off.  A weekly deadline and others to deride me if I don’t make it, now there’s a winning strategy.  So I enlisted the talents of Scott and Sam to keep me on track.  As of now, Sam has not sent in his introduction yet.  I am fully prepared to make him ashamed he ever picked up a pen should he fail in his mission.

Here is the plan.  The three of us come up with 52 challenges and write 1000 words or less on each one.  That should leave us just about 150,000 words by this time in March next year.  That’s a heck of a book of short stories.  I’d also like to set up a blog for this project and post one of each of ours every month.  I have grand notions of getting a guest story each month too, but I suppose we’ll see how that goes.

The intention is to get us thinking about writing every day, not to mention honing our skills.  We want to be better.  We want to be able to write about anything.  We want to make things that challenge not only us, as writers, but you as readers.  We have grand notions about how to go about this.  The time for notions is at an end now, though.  The time for doing real work has begun.  I don’t know if we’re going into this really knowing what we’ve agreed to, but I figure, if we can’t write 1000 words a week, we don’t deserve to call ourselves writers.  So here it is, a new beginning a new project for us to sink our teeth into.  Will anyone care?  I hope so, but that’s not the goal.  The goal is to get words on paper.  The goal is to have a schedule.  The goal is to think about something new each week and then willfully create it.  The goal is to undo apathy and stand boredom on its head.  The goal is to make something we can be proud of.

I am excited to be going into this abyss of writer’s block, plot holes and grammar traps with two close friends of mine.  They have both been writing for years as well and, like me, are always looking for an outlet to unleash their ideas upon an unsuspecting world.  I’ve known Scott since high school.  He is constantly contemplating the more macabre elements of the mundanities that surround us.  He has a penchant for dark humor and horror with a twist.  Sam, I met while attending Rutgers University.  He is outspoken and boisterous, but has become very introspective over the last few years.  His writing sizzles with sarcasm and wit.  All three of us have worked together in the past with varying degrees of success.  Hopefully something of this magnitude will be the kick in the pants we need to come into our own in the writing world.

Should we succeed, this will easily be the largest idea that I’ve ever gone through with, and I think that the same can be said of my cohorts.  It is daunting to think about the final numbers associated with this, but it goes to show that a small amount of effort on a regular basis can accomplish big things.  We all know that simply writing a lot doesn’t infer success, but it is certainly the first step, and who among us doesn’t want to be successful?

Alright then, onwards and upwards to the first story challenge, expect the unexpected.

Terminate futurecast.  Initiate future.