So I’m trying to make this an annual project for myself, doing a 52 Week Challenge of some sort after reading about Dean Wesley Smith’s 52 Short Story Challenge last year. http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=53  While I came up short, I did manage to complete several short stories, probably ending up in the 40s somewhere. You can view my progress here. While I only got to Week 26, I did continue to write several short stories after this, namely a 14 shorts in 14 days project I did at Mythic Scribes. Of all of those stories, several were published both online and in print/e-book. For 2014, I’m trying a new project, which I shall chronicle here and at my blog. I’d love for others to join in, especially those who have Creative ADD and just like having several irons in the fire so to speak.

The idea of this project is to develop 52 first chapters, one a week for a year. This means each of the 52 chapters will be from, theoretically, 52 “potential” novels. This doesn’t mean I’m going to write 52 novels from these first chapters, but if they turn out good, hell, I just might! Some may evolve into short stories or some may just stay first chapters, forever floating out there in space to never be completed. Yeah, I know, that leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well, but it’s one of those things that might just happen in a big project like this.

So my hope is that people will visit my blog and leave comments on the first chapters that they like so by the end of 2014, I may have several good first chapters to turn into potential novels. I’m not sure what’s exactly going to happen, but I’m excited about the prospects.

While 2014 is going on, I will be editing two novels and probably begin working on a third (of which I already have planned.) If I finish the third one in 2014 (which I fully expect) I may pull one of the 52 first chapters from my “pool” and start working on a fourth novel. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet!

Anyway, I hope people will either join in with me with this project or devise a 52 week project of their own. I don’t necessarily think something like this has to be someone’s sole focus, but it’s good to have in order to train your writing muscle and get ideas for future projects. That’s my take anyway.

I’ll be doing another short story challenge as well. Boy, I’m going to be busy!

I’ll be beginning on January 1st for Week 1. I will post updates here and I hope others will post their own updates as well.

Here’s hoping for a productive and fruitful 2014!