2019 In Review. (A short story of the 2010s)

Well, we are at the end of the 2010s. And this feels right, somehow. It’s been a wild decade. I started this decade as an absolute naive dumbass, that was making mistake after mistake after mistake. But it was the year I started writing on this blog. And just like any writer or artist, boy, t’was cringe. But, I started this decade in love, and I am ending it in love, which is sweet and gives it a mirroring effect. I also didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself, who I was or what I wanted. This then transitioned into the wildest years of my life, where I ran a coffee bar, together with a friend. Which, obviously failed, due to our lack of experience. Then the two years of pure depression and a sudden realization of what I wanted to do. Followed by determination, attending college, hype due to said college, disappointment, frustration, anger, and spite.

Which brings us all to 2016, when I publish my first book whilst in college. Trapped: Autumn, a bold first step into the publishing world. Six months later, I publish my second book. A sequel named Trapped: Spring. The two a few months later break the top 100. And seeing that being at a literally college, no one cared about someone that actually published books, I dropped out. In 2018, the two books sell copies every single month of the year. While writing Trapped: Summer, I develop panic attacks and a severe general anxiety disorder. I stop writing. After months of focusing on my mental health that year, I restart my passion, by launching my own website and re-writing some of my old content and slowly getting back into writing. After changing day jobs in October, I also manage to quit smoking after almost 10 years. Towards the latter half of the year, I start writing again, finishing with a few new short stories, and announcing the biggest project on this Blog, Attropolis.

But 2018 ends with an idea about the order of the last two books in the Trapped: Seasons series. Thus I start writing a new book, Trapped: Winter. So, 2019 starts with me publishing Trapped: Winter in January. A new fantastic chapter in the series. But due to burnout, panic attacks and anxiety, my efforts to market it or sell it are zero. The next few months, I re-write Trapped: Summer from zero and that first summer day I publish it. But again, due to severe stress, anxiety and burnout, my marketing and selling efforts are close to zero. Yet, I kept writing, as people were reading the blog. Whether they were keeping up with my first 52 week story on this blog, Attropolis. Or they were engaged into The Pilot Program and those short stories. With a few thousand people visiting the website this year. This October I also had the chance to write an interactive story for an app named Questo for my hometown. And seeing over 800 people gather at once place to play an interactive game in the real life, was simply awe inspiring and humbling. In 2019 I also managed to rectify some of my biggest regrets and mistakes that I had made at the beginning of this decade. I also started following my dream job as a full time job, as now I am writing full time and not sacrificing anything for it. Which is rather stressful. This year, I also started writing for the fifth book. With almost a hundred pages written and edited, together with the cover of it being almost done. Here are some impressive numbers:

Story of a Game in 2019: 1 (Questo App)

Books Published in 2019: 2 (Trapped: Winter, Trapped: Summer)

Short Stories Published in 2019: 62 - 52 (Attropolis) + 8 (The Pilot Program) + 2 (Rants) (That’s 1.19 short stories per week)

Total Pages Written in 2019: 815

Words Written in 2019: 275.000

Characters Written in 2019: 1.3 Million (It’s just weird to think about this one, that’s why I am including it)

What’s to come in 2020?

Well, another at least 2 books, another 52 weeks of short stories, another season of The Pilot Program. And much more. Believe me, I am just starting.

Consider donating: https://www.paypal.me/RaulFO

Pilot Program - The Spiteful Playwright

“Stories, we all have them. As humans, we’re all social creatures, no matter how much we don’t like to admit it. That’s why we sometimes act out, that’s why being rejected hurts us and why being lonely is depressing and frustrating. And stories, are the one thing that we all like. We all tell each other stories, whether we think them, tell them or write them, we always tell stories. Big, small, happy, tragic, stories are what bind us, helps us understand each other.”

The phone rang, it was her again, I picked up more out of a sense of shame for denying them once too many times. Hello? She didn’t wait for me to finish the greeting as she went on her tirade. Hey, you finally picked up, look… Here’s the deal, I’m with a theater troupe at a coffee right now. I know one of the actresses here and the guy that runs this whole deal. So, as the conversation progressed, I asked them what they were performing and doing in town and stuff like that, right? Yeah, so listen here, they told me that they want to try something new, something different, right? So guess who I thought about? Yeah, Mr. Author, it’s you. I thought about you and your books. I remember that you once told me that you’d want your books turned into a theater piece and that you’d want it as an audio book but you’d need a theater group. So guess what? I told them about your books, what you’d like to do and what you’re about and how you approach things and what your outlook on the world is and they’d want to talk to you about it. What do you say? Isn’t that amazing? You’ll have to treat me to something, of course I’ll bring my mon cher with me and you, your girl. She sometimes talks like a Shinkansen and you feel like that train hit you and shattered your brains to pieces. This is the motherly awesome Kris, she awesome, but erratic. Anyway, here’s the guy I was telling you about that runs this whole troupe, his name is Andrew by the way. Here… Hey, guy. I’m Andrew, I heard a lot about you from Kris. So you wrote a book? Usually when people ask me that, they either want to clarify things or they’re curious how I’ll respond. Hey, nice to meet you, I wrote like four that are in that style and could be easily turned into plays. I am really curious what he has in mind. Look, we can’t pay you much, but if you want we can give you like a 10% if you’re interested, just so we get this out of the way. And you can even direct it yourself, if you feel like it. That was really odd. So, you don’t want to read them or anything like that? He started laughing. Kris here convinced me, so if you want, we can meet tomorrow if you’re free and discuss the details and what you’d like and what we can offer. Well, they can’t pay me, cause of course they can’t, no one really gives a shit about this, unless you’re a big shot. Fuck it, why not. Yeah, tomorrow sounds great. See you at the statue downtown, next to the bell then. He responded with a sure and that ended the phone call. Well, that’s not how I imagined this would go today. But I’m going to have some fun with this.

This is the fifth of the short stories for the Pilot Program. How does it work? You read the short stories within the pilot program, you re-read them, share them, like them, comment if you like them, force your friends to read them and then maybe this will become the short story series for 2020.

Consider donating: https://www.paypal.me/RaulFO