Project Completed – All Fifty

If you’ve been following along, you’ll see that my page “The Fiction Project” has reached its initial target of fifty. The aim was to produce a short piece at the rate of at least three a week until I’d done fifty.

The rules were simple –

• Spend no longer than 45 minutes on each piece;

• No revising and no agonizing after that (unless typos popped up!);

• Put it up for all the world to see as soon as it’s done.

So what, you may ask, did it prove?

The first thing I discovered was that I had plenty of stories and events to write about. Previously I might have discarded them by saying, yeah, there’s no future in that one. And yet there might be a present in it, whatever it was. By giving myself permission to write small things I discovered just how many stories I could notice and generate. Some may yet prove to be the start of something longer…. If you do this exercise you’ll discover you’re more creative than you think.

Second: With an exercise like this one has to let go of judgment (see item 1) and self-editing, which is really self-censoring. One just has to get on and do it.

Third: It gives you the freedom to do something silly, to fail, to miss the mark, and sometimes it’s when we do this that really good notions and emotions emerge. And after all, who cares if a piece fails? It’s one piece better than nothing at all.

Fourth: It banishes the fear of the empty page/blank screen very effectively.

Fifth: It deals very effectively with the desire most writers have to tinker, to alter, to get out the dental tools and fiddle. There’s a time for that, but we often go into it too soon. Decorate the house when you want to, but first make sure you’ve built the walls.

Sixth: It turned out to be fun! I thought it might be a grind, a bore, a dreadful weight to have to shoulder. It wasn’t. Thoughts would emerge during the day and I’d write them when I had a moment. I’d tapped into my Unconscious, my deep creative self, and it had a lot to tell me.

Seventh: At times it proved itself to be rather emotional. Perhaps the heart of a good story is not an idea but an emotion. And you have to give a space for the emotion to emerge into. That’s what this did.

Eighth: At the end of the day there is something to look at, to share, to ponder. And that, my friends, is not only satisfying (no matter how inexpert the product) but it’s also 100% better than not having anything on a page at all.

Ninth: Invention is more fun than biography. It gives you more elbow room.

This is something you can try at home.