The Ray Bradbury Challenge

Over the past year, I've been watching many Ray Bradbury YouTube videos on writing. As I got deeper and deeper into my novel, I was looking for more inspiration, more nuggets of wisdom to load into my metaphorical writer pockets, and his whole writing philosophy really spoke to me.

I mentioned his comments about not thinking at the typewriter when first drafting to feel the story and not over-intellectualize what you're putting down. The thinking part comes later in the editing.

As an aside, I met him a few times as a student at UCLA at the LA Times Book Fair when it used to be hosted there. He was such a warm and friendly man, always willing to talk books and dinosaurs with fellow lovers of such at his little booth.

A short story a week

Another video I came across was a talk he was giving at a college. Early in his talk, he mentions young writers needing to first hone their craft, so rather than start big with a novel they should start small with a short story a week. The video below starts where he gives this advice.

To challenge myself, keep myself accountable and create content for my website to feed the AI overlords, I thought I'd try this out in public and see where it goes.

Can I actually write one short story a week? Will I be able to generate 1,000 to 10,000 words a week while still writing a novel? Will the stories be any good? Is burnout to be expected?

I guess we'll see, but it's the journey I'm most intrigued about. A year from now, I could have 52 posts of stories with a minimum of 52,000 words written, but the experience will have far outweighed the work.

Ideas, ideas, my kingdom for an idea

For years, I've subscribed to Reedsy's weekly writing prompts, and over the years I may have written two full short stories with a handful of ones that I started and never finished. So I will continue to stay subscribed so that I'll at least have a starting point for a story idea.

Heck, maybe if one is even decent, I may enter it to win a cool $250. Any extra money comes in handy when you have after-school care to pay for.

To make it official, I will start with the next prompt delivered to my inbox on Friday, June 20, 2025, and will post before each subsequent Friday emailed prompt.

So, if you happen to read my blog or come across this site while I'm in the throes of short-story madness, maybe drop me a line of encouragement. I'm probably going to need it.