The 25

"It takes 25 stories... to make one story that is good enough for someone else to read." --John Smolens, "There's No Such Thing as a Failed Story" Writer's Digest, February 2010.

I saw it written somewhere that a writer's success is proportional to their output. Simply stated: the more you write, the greater your chance at success. And that makes obvious sense. But John Smolens, professor of English at Northern Michigan University, elaborates on that theory in his article in this month's edition of Writer's Digest.

Basically, he states that only 1 story out of 25 will be "good". That you, the writer, must write at least 25 stories in order to produce a really good one. Now, those 25 don't have to be completed stories. They can be ideas that don't work out, false starts, and abandoned drafts. The point is that they were written. That you attempted them.

So that's what I'm going to do this year. As well as using my themes to propel my writing this year (see previous post), I'm going to make it a goal to write 25 stories. Now, like I just said, they won't all be finished stories. Rather, they are to be 25 attempts to write a single, good story. Some will be abandoned after the first page. Some after 5 pages. But that doesn't matter. The point is to keep going, to keep writing until that golden one uncovered.

How about you? I used to think I was a failure for having so many unfinished drafts, but it's obviously not an uncommon occurrence among writers. Do you have a lot of unfinished pieces? Ideas that don't work out? Have you found that the more you produce, the more publish?