InkStains: An Update

Today is 1 December. 31 days remain in the year. I will write 30 more InkStains.

I originally intended to take up to 3 days off every month. But after several months of taking only a single day, I decided that was the true target: one day off, enforced. Some months, I almost didn’t take it, but I’ve discovered that the fount needs a day of rest as much as it needs to be pumped, cajoled, pushed, seduced, and encouraged.

Some days are weaker than others. Some stories are not good.

Some are.

At least, I believe this to be true. Maybe I’m not the best judge of my own work. Maybe mine aren’t the most objective eyes.

It’s strange, as I’m writing new stories and typing up some of the old ones (and strange to consider them all, having been written this calendar year), the themes I go back to, the imagery that twines through my work, the connections when there were never meant to be connections.

But of course all the stories are connected. All the stories are me. Even the ones that are explicitly not about me.

One thing I’ve learned: the fount never runs dry. There are always more ideas. There are always more characters, more stories, more places, more angles, more explorations. Some don’t work. That’s to be expected. Some are beautiful. Perhaps touching. Exciting.

You might ask what project I’m going to take on in 2014. I’ll share more about that later. For now, I’m going to give you a number. At the end of the eleventh month, the number of InkStains stories I’ve written: 321.

321 down. 30 to go.

Somewhere, the math is wrong. I seem to be off by 2.

UPDATE: There are two 82s and two 234s. This is wrong, and should be corrected. The true InkStains count, as of 30 November: 323.