Thank you for being a part of this story
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 06:53:00 PM

There's been a moment before every Kickstarter I've launched that I hesitate and wonder, "What if this is a mistake? What if nobody cares?"

With this project, I felt that harder than I have before. I spent five years kicking some of these stories around before I got to starting up the project properly, because I honestly didn't think they would go anywhere. But I figured that I was enjoying writing them so much that maybe that didn't matter. Eventually I decided to put together the website as a mostly-for-my-own-amusement hobby project, which was scary in itself because it meant turning down paid work to focus on it.

Now I just wish I'd started sooner.

I've put more of myself into this book than I have into any project before. I still don't know exactly how to explain what the hell The Shortest Story is or why it matters so much to me, but I'm starting to learn why it matters to other people, and it's helping me understand the shape of my own feelings better.

There will be many more updates to come, but for now, let me just say a huge thank you from the bottom of my demon-bartered heart.

This book feels like a turning point in the story of my life. I couldn't be more grateful to have you be a part of it.

We made it!
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 04:59:58 PM

Last night we smashed through the fundraising goal, and my dark-ritual-bound heart grew three sizes!

I celebrated the only way I know how--by frying up a batch of pancakes. (And let the record show that this was the best batch of pancakes I've ever made--just the right amount of fluffy.)

I'm also going to celebrate by showing you one of next week's stories early!

This is BY FAR the fastest I've ever had a project funded, and by far the proudest I've been to see a project pass its goal. To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to take off so quickly, and I'm now starting to think about how we can take things to the next level with stretch goals.

Let's talk stretch goals!

We're already coming up on our first one

At $10,000 we'll be having Cecil Baldwin narrate an additional 3 stories in the collection. I've come up with my list of stories for him to read, including some existing favourites from the website as well as never-before-seen stories.

I've also been talking to our printer about other options for spiffing out the book to make it look as beautiful as possible. I want people to look at it and wonder what the heck it is and what could be going on between those covers.

Also, I've had so much fun working with the guest authors on their pieces, that I'd like to look into putting some of the extra money into commissioning monthly guest stories for the website from different writers. If you have writers you'd like to see postcard stories from, feel free to suggest them below!

Oh, and some of you asked about add-ons!