SansPoint

Admitting Defeat: A Fifty-Two Stories Post-Mortem

\A guy oughta know when he’s licked. About a year ago, officially launching on April 2nd, I began Fifty-Two Stories, a personal project to write fifty-two short stories. I’d post one a week for a whole year, and maybe do something afterwards.

It lasted for five months. Not terribly bad, and looking over the debris, there’s a few gems. I’m still proud of “Newborn Imminent”, and “Week Three.” “Week Three,” in fact, with a bit of spit and polish, could probably be publishable. In total, I managed to write 23 stories, which is 21 more than I expected to write.[1] After all, I was—still am— a college student, working part-time, and there were a couple months of serious social stress that left my creativity utterly zapped for a while. All I could focus on at the time was my survival, and my academics.

Also, I broke the damn site upgrading to a newer version of WordPress, and could scarcely muster up the energy to do anything to fix it. I didn’t even know what was causing the problem until just recently.

So, the whole damn shebang’s been taken down. The site’s still there. The stories still in the database, but the site is displaying a polite apology and promise of a do-over. The current plan is to kick things off on June 1st, with a potential for bumping the start date back to July 1st due to the uncertainty of my physical location, free time, and form of employment.[2]

I stand before you a man who has admitted defeat. Unlike Jonathan Coulton whose “Thing-a-Week” project inspired this… thing… I failed. The most important thing is to not wallow, but to get back on that wagon. I just want a chance to clean the gravel out of my wounds first.


  1. It’s called “realistic expectations.” ↩
  2. I am possibly going to spend this summer studying to become a New York City public school teacher. If this falls through, I am possibly going to spend this summer sending rèsumès and cover letters to any company with entry-level positions in the NYC Metropolitan Area. If that also fails, I am possibly going to cause violence. ↩