In a moment of inspiration I once challenged GabrielGreco back in 2020. This was back when the two of us were writing on and off on 200WAD. Back before
Baz
announced that it would be closing. I sold Gabriel on the premise of us writing one short story a week until the end of the year. This challenge was based off
Ray Bradbury
's advice on how to get a short story published: write a story each week and you'll end up with one publishable piece year's end because no matter how poor of a writer you are it's unlikely that you'll write 52 consecutive bad stories.
The first week of the challenge I wrote a snippet of a story but by the second week I was nowhere to be found. I think this was right around when
COVID
was taking off in the U.S. I found it too easy to get sucked into the news cycle of world crisis more than writing fiction. The state of the world consumed my headspace, I couldn't think the same way as before. It was like I was thinking like everybody else.
Later in the year after the shutdown of
200WAD
was announced I returned and went through Gabriel's feed and saw that for someone who was abandoned right away by their challenge buddy he'd kept up pretty well on the challenge. Of course this isn't a
Disney
movie of one of Gabriel's story being picked up by
The New Yorker
and then Gabriel becoming a smash hit author. But he did a decent job. Not only had he wrote some attempts at fiction but he had also been decently active commenting and writing about others in the community. I was surprised by the amount of his activity, although I did find a lot of it hilarious because it rubbed many in the community the wrong way.
But anyways why am I writing this? It's because sometimes I get pissed off, sometimes I convince myself that Gabriel isn't worth
co-writing
with. I feel a lot of things related to waiting for him to come back to writing beside me. And I guess looking back at how I disappeared in the past it makes sense how someone might keep a coldwire for awhile.
The good thing though is that just like you should Live. Just Live Life. Enjoy livingSeun Oyebode no matter the situation, I'm glad that I can now write everyday about anything and nothing no matter what. I know if this was 2020 Abe he would've made up an excuse like: Well Gabriel isn't writing so I can just not do it too.
keni I think the 52 weeks challenge is tough for me not because it's hard to write up 52 stories, but because of imagined expectations I hold.
So if I want to write good stories I'll not allow myself to write bad ones. And then I won't write the good one because I'm not writing any.
The key is to not expect to write anything good
GabrielGreco lol I actaully don't remember what things you did. I think one time you said something like try harder and then it upset people like
Baz
.
I remember there was a guy there, don't remember his name - but he was Asian so that would make me guilty of #asianhate - and he wrote like a sentence and I said "try harder". And he never talked to me again :(
GabrielGreco
Seun Oyebode
And the 52 week challenge doesn't seem so hard - especially for someone like you. For me it would induce high levels of anxiety
-- do you think it was stuff like that that might rub people the wrong way? :D
So if I want to write good stories I'll not allow myself to write bad ones. And then I won't write the good one because I'm not writing any.
The key is to not expect to write anything good