Through Smith, I learned a lot about writing and publishing. I also learned about the history of genre fiction, including the writers who filled those monthly, weekly, and bi-weekly all-fiction magazines known as the pulps from 1900 through about the early to mid-1950s. Those writers wrote short stories daily and could writer novelettes, novels, and short novels every week to order. They had a work ethic and made good money doing it back in those days.
Fast forward a century later, there are modern-day counterparts to those pulp writers writing today. I count Smith as one of them. I've always wanted to count myself among them. With that in mind, I'm giving myself a little test. It's a writing challenge. An exercise in building my stamina as a creative writer. Besides, I need to stock up on stories for my monthly magazine, Kilgore's Five Stories somehow, don't I?
As the title of this blog implies, the aim is to write a story a day for the entire month of February. Yes, on the surface it does sound a bit crazy, but maybe it's not so crazy once you get beyond the myths and illusions that grown up around the profession of fiction writing. I mean, Smith himself is doing the same kind of challenge on a much grander scale. He's trying to do a story a day for the entire year.
So, here I am making this challenge more official.
Wish me luck.
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