The Curse of Future Tom – Day One

I began writing this blog on April 9th, 2010, with a public challenge to myself to post something every single day for a year. I allow myself any topic, any genre, and each post can be fiction, non-fiction, or something in between.

I’ve been writing for many years, and I’ve completed several novels only to put them to the side and simply start another. Sometimes I would stop writing entirely, for months at a time. All along, every book that I read about writing, every person who actually was a writer, kept insisting to me – you’ve got to write something every day.

Frequently, that’s exactly what I’d do, but it’s a hard commitment to keep, if you’re the only one watching. When you’re just dropping pages into a hard drive, it’s easy to let yourself slide – no one notices.

I wouldn’t say it’s easy, with everyone watching, but it’s certainly an effective motivation. I was pretty clear with myself and everyone reading from the beginning – if I ever stop, if I ever skip a day, if I ever decide to just let myself slide any time this whole year, well, that means that sitting in my office dropping pages in a hard drive is exactly where I belong.

So please take a minute when you have one, to read through anything posted here. You should be able to pick something at random, and if it draws from a previous post, there will be a link at the beginning telling you so.

Part of the point is to provide a wide range of emotion and subject matter, so you could easily wind up laughing or crying or getting a little bit angry. I imagine there are some duds in there – nobody bats a thousand.

Striking out is unpleasant, but it’s worse to sit on the bench all day, and you won’t find me there anymore. I’m publishing an anthology later this year, and a novel next year, and on April 9, 2011 we’ll all get to take a look and see what happened. My feeling is, it’s going to be something to see.

– Tom Chalfant