52 Stories in 52 Weeks

An Invitation to Write with SWAP52Club

In 2001, Ray Bradbury gave the keynote address of The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea and gave a bit of advice that would spark an annual tradition of 52 story new year resolutions from writers everywhere. He said this:

The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week — it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done. At the end of 30 weeks or 40 weeks or at the end of the year, all of a sudden a story will come that’s just wonderful.

Many years ago, when I first heard this sage advice I, too, attempted to pick up the gauntlet Mr. Bradbury tossed at my wannabe writer feet. I had a personal blog at the time, so I wrote a post about the quote and how I would endeavor to write 52 short stories in the year ahead. I was inspired. I was fired up. I was ready to walk in the footsteps of giants. I was ready to be prolific!

I began with my first short story, posted it on my blog after writing, rewriting and polishing it all within one week while still juggling my daily posts and guest posts for other blogs. In the second week, another story was drafted…