What began on April 4, 2014 ended on March 30, 2024.

3,650 days, 3,650 short stories, and 1,332,250 words later, I have taken my hands away from the keyboard. No more writing a short story – every one exactly 365 words long – every day for me. At least for now.

After ten years, I’m done.

I semi-infamously said at the end of Year 5 that ten was a nice, round number. Much of me suspected I wasn’t capable of writing short stories every day for ten years. And, in a way, I was right, because more than once I missed a day. I made up for those lapses by writing not two, but three, stories the next day, so between those penance stories and others I threw in to stress test my own sanity, I ended up somewhere north of that 1.3-million word count. It wasn’t exactly how we had it mapped out, but we got there.

I know what it feels like to write more at a stretch than Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, and Marcel Proust. Will I ever know what it feels like to write as well as any of those dead honkies? Outlook not so good. Will I ever know what it feels like to write short stories every day for ten years straight without missing any?

No. I’m done.

What better proof can I offer beyond the fact that I didn’t bother to count this collection of words before sharing them? (If they end up numbering exactly three hundred and sixty-five, please take that more as an indication that my habits are forever changed than a confession that I am backsliding.)

What’s next? Well, if I want my writing to be published anywhere more interesting than corporate blogs, I need to write something with more mass appeal than a million-plus-word collection of scenes and ramblings. So I need to write a book about writing to get people to read what I’ve written. But that’s not today’s problem.

Today I’m done.

[Insert your favorite fictional “the end” here. Frodo staring into the middle distance and mumbling “It’s done.” Jesus yelling one of several things from the cross. In this, as in most things, I’ll stick with Strong Bad.]