Optional Explanations

This blog started in January 2011 as a yearlong project to read and write about a hundred different short stories from a craft perspective.  What works, what doesn't work, and how those authors do what they do.  Two stories a week--easy!

Or not.  Reading two-a-week is easy for me, but writing about them isn't.  (First, there's all that thinking.  And after that, I have to come up with my own words.  I mean, I use words that already exist, but I have to put them in a brand new order.  Whew!)  I started out strong but the entries slowed to a trickle, finally dropping off completely in September, just shy of halfway to my goal of a hundred.

Guess I should've picked a different blog name, heh heh.  I confess that the inaccuracy grates on my sense of perfectionism.  But it doesn't change the fact that I've loved delving into all these stories and discovering scads of new-to-me authors.  Short fiction is a beast that's too often ignored, and ignored beasts tend to poop in corners.  My point is, I don't see any reason to stop blogging about stories just because of a little hiccup (a.k.a., LIFE EVENTS AND TOTAL FAILURE) in 2011.

Plus, see, I bought all these books with the excuse that I'd be using them for the blog.

So here's to another year--or to another fifty-one stories--or to however far I get for however long I end up doing it.  (Hooray, nonspecificity!)  Thank you very much for hanging out with me while I analyze and pick and prod at this literature, and please feel free to hit me with all your thoughtful thoughts and grave concerns for my well-being in the comments.