I Wrote One Short Story For 100 Days Straight And Here's What Happened

Published: 2025-11-13

Don't you love it when you come across a click-baity, YouTube-esque title like this one? You don't? Well, neither do I, but it's true. I wrote and actually published one short story per day on this very same blog for the past 100 days, without fail. It wasn't easy — What is? But it was fun, and here's the story.

Before Reaching The Starting Line
Day 0
Days 1 Through 10
Days 11 Through 25
Days 26 Through 50
Days 51 Through 75
Days 76 Through 100
What Did I Learn?
What's Next?
All The Stories In Writing Order

Before Reaching The Starting Line

The worst thing about being born and raised in a poor family, in a poor country, is not having to drink stomach-ache-inducing tap water and then sleeping on your stomach because once again your parents couldn't afford dinner. No, sir, you get used to that... eventually. The worst part is having to dream small, having to conform with whatever you get from life, and counting your blessings. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from, creative fulfillment is the least of your concerns.

But kids don't care, and I dared to dream. I made my own trading card game with original monsters hand-drawn and colored by myself when I was seven years old — because I couldn't afford Yu-Gi-Oh cards —, co-wrote — alongside my older, more creative cousin — a superhero series when I was eleven, and wrote an article for an independent newspaper when I was sixteen. Not an astonishing resume by any stretch of the imagination, but writing was somehow always there.

Looking back to those years, I cannot help but ask what would be different if I hadn't let the spark of creativity die. Who knows. Kids from poor countries have to work as if they were men as soon as they're able to, and that's how I spent my teens. I was too tired to care for creative work.

It wasn't until my mid-twenties that I reconnected with my creative self: I did YouTube, I did stand-up, and that eventually brought me here, to writing.

Day 0

I couldn't sleep; therefore, I got up. I had creative ideas — I always have; thus, I started reading. Save The Cat was my book of choice. I started reading it years ago, but never finished it. What else could I read at four in the morning?

It was clear to me that I wanted to write stories, for my own amusement — and maybe for other people's too —, but I didn't know how to. A lot of reading was to be done if I ever wanted to learn how to write.

From that day on, I read. I finished Save The Cat, and started another book, then another one, and another. I read fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, and autobiographies. I read books in English and Spanish. I read about writing, and I read for the fun of it, but damn it, I read! I did more reading during these 100 days than in the past decade.

Here are the books I read in case you're curious:

Audiobooks

Short Stories

The following stories are all drafts, first drafts, that is. I wrote them, and I moved on. I haven't checked them ever since. I see them more as exercises than pieces of literature to be read and enjoyed. They are most likely plagued with grammar and syntax errors, aside from the obvious storytelling sins the amateur wanna-be writer might commit. They are not meant to be read, unless the reader has offering criticism in mind. You've been warned, do not enjoy them.

Days 1 Through 10

The first ten days were difficult, in particular the very first day. Writing a story was nothing like writing stand-up comedy, where I could just get in a stream of consciousness, write whatever, and then take what I wanted. No, I had to write with coherence in mind, and I hate coherence. This is evident in the first story I wrote: Untitled Story #1, which I sometimes refer to as A Guy Decides To Be A Social Recluse. It's told entirely in third-person unlimited, and it doesn't have a single line of dialogue. It's an abomination, and it makes me feel ashamed, as if I just wet the bed.

I had some interesting ideas — despite the poor execution. For example, Untitled Story #4, A Group Of Guys At A McDonald's Discuss A Movie They Just Saw, it's the kind of Seinfeld-esque stuff I enjoy reading and would like to write. It's just that, a "slice of life" story of a group of friends talking at a McDonald's. Nothing more than that.

As I approached the 10% mark, I thought about getting out of my comfort zone with the writing prompts I came up with; thus, I wrote Untitled Story #7, A Guy Chats With A Woman Every Night But Things Go Wrong. I had watched the movie Phone Booth the day before and basically ripped off the story for this one. Shameful stuff.

The longest and most complex story I wrote during those first ten days was Untitled Story #9, A Guy Gets A Chance To Sleep With The Girl Of His Dreams But Cannot Find A Box Of Condoms. I felt good after writing this almost two-thousand-two-hundred-word piece. Although riddled with style and composition errors, incoherent plot, and much repetition, it was my little mess, and I loved it all the same.

In a typical me-fashion, I had to end on a low note; thus, I wrote Untitled Story #10, A Guy Finds A Fly In His Soup. A less than a thousand words story where half of it is "X said" or "X replied", because I knew squat about dialogue attribution by that point...

Days 11 Through 25

The next 15 days were less difficult; I kept reading and learning, and that made my writing a little better. Take my word when I say "a little". I mean it.

The first story I wrote was Untitled Story #11, A Woman Has To Work Overtime While Her Kid Is Home Alone. In a perfect world, this story would be thrilling, but again, I could not pull that off. The end of the story was literally taken from a writing prompt in Steve King's On Writing. I had read it the day before, and my mind went instantly there.

The next day, I wrote Untitled Story #12, Two Guys Play Videogames And Talk. I usually start from a prompt and let my mind take me anywhere it wants to; this time, however, I started from a funny piece of dialogue I wrote and wanted to fit into a story so badly. It's about economy in JRPGs; of course it was funny!

A couple of days later, I tried writing horror for the first time. Untitled Story #15, A Man Writes In His Diary, and Untitled Story #16, A Housewife Waits For Her Husband's Family Visit, are what I managed to come up with. I tried stuff like an unreliable narrator for the first time here. I felt like I needed a shower after writing the former of the stories because of the kind of violence depicted there, but I told myself that's what the character would do — because he's a sick bastard. The latter story occurred to me after reading a headline that lacked commas, and deciding to run with it.

Further down the line, I wrote Untitled Story #18, Terrorists Take Over A TV Station. I was so scared of writing this because I thought the prompt was solid and I didn't want to mess it up, but I like how it turned out. This is one of the stories that I'd love to rewrite after I get a better idea of what I'm doing. This story gave me my favorite character so far: Lorenzo López, whom I want to make a recurring character in my stories.

Untitled Story #19, A Woman Talks To The Police was inspired by this toot. I asked myself: "How can I make a story out of this?" and ran with it.

Another couple of days passed, and I tried writing something sci-fi(ish) in Untitled Story #21, A Man Gets A Call From His Future Self. I wanted this story to be so much more, but the result is all I could come up with, and I won't obsess about it.

Untitled Story #22, A Man Reads The Eulogy At His Father's Funeral, and Untitled Story #23, High School Students Get A Chain Letter Email are both father-son stories, the former being more emotional than the latter, especially because the latter is unfinished. I'd need around 5,000 words to tell the story I want, which makes it a perfect candidate for a rewrite. Also, I named the kid Tyler in the latter because I was reading Fight Club at the moment.

Next, we have my favorite story so far: Untitled Story #24, There's A Heist In A Hospital. The reason I love this story is that it really happened, and I saw it with my own eyes. In 2014, I was an intern in one of the biggest hospitals of my hometown — as an AC repairman, not in a medical role! Long story short, everything in the story happened exactly how I described it, except for the dialogue between the heist team, which I obviously had to come up with. Now, this story is flawed. Not because of my inherent lack of knowledge in the craft, but because I was sleep-deprived and exhausted when I wrote it; thus, it ended up not only with several grammatical and syntactical errors, but also with named characters that literally serve no function besides having a single line. What a waste... I will definitely rewrite this one, but as for now, I present it as it is.

For the last story of this stretch, Untitled Story #25, A Guy Has A Date With Her Crush, I didn't go out with a bang. I wanted to create a character part unreliable, part complex, but I don't think it ended up working.

Days 26 Through 50

During this stretch, I went from a quarter to half the way; I'm not gonna lie, it felt good! It's all downhill from here on, as they say.

I incorporated dystopian and science fiction themes in multiple stories during these 25 days, starting with Untitled Story #26, An Anti-Noise Pollution Law Is Passed In The Future. Other stories are: Untitled Story #30, Aliens!; which I imagined as an episode of The Twilight Zone; Untitled Story #32, A Man Gets Warned 24 Hours Before His Son Dies, which is basically the plot of the series Person Of Interest; Untitled Story #33, Zombies!; Untitled Story #35, Workers Don't Exist Outside Work; Untitled Story #36, Minors Get More Rights In The Future, which occurred to me after seeing a Huggies billboard; Untitled Story #41, Space Traveling!; and Untitled Story #49, People Live Forever, which I somehow thought of and posted about the premise on Mastodon. These stories were fun to write and are some of my favorites.

In the paranormal/supernatural front I wrote such stories as: Untitled Story #28, A Guy Tries To Revive His Wife; Untitled Story #38, People Ride A Bus, which I wrote solely because I wanted a story that took place in a bus; Untitled Story #39, Dancing!; Untitled Story #40, A Kid Hears Voices; Untitled Story #45, A Guy Speed Dates; and Untitled Story #46, A Dark Cloud Engulfs A City. I don't think these stories are as solid as the previously mentioned ones, but I still had a good time writing them and think most of them have potential to become something greater.

I also wrote my first ever erotica story: Untitled Story #42 Horny Stuff!, which is not that much about horniness as one may expect; and my first fantasy story: Untitled Story #44, Fantasy!. At first, I only had a one-line premise, and I told myself that turning it into a fantasy story would be pretty fun. I wanted it to be familiar but also different; that's why I chose a premise that had nothing to do with fantasy. It also serves as a good metaphor — I hope.

As usual, I didn't get out with a bang. The last story of this stretch was Untitled Story #50, A Kid Gets A Tamagotchi. I liked where the story went as I wrote it, but I committed myself to an ending before knowing the direction the story was gonna take. It's supposed to be a supernatural story after all, but it's not immediately evident.

With these 25 stories, I experimented a lot. Some stories went too heavy on description, which may not be ideal when writing flash fiction. I'm still learning; I will allow myself to make mistakes, look back, and learn from them. Writing every day is more important than being perfect.

Post by @maxalmonte14@indiehackers.social

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Days 51 Through 75

The next 25 days took me three-quarters of the way. I'm not going to lie, by this point, I was tired. Finding the time and energy for creative work in between work and chores was not easy. Fortunately, work was not too demanding, and I could push through.

I started with Untitled Story #51, A Flesh-Eating Bacteria Epidemic Breaks Loose. The story is a celebration of life in times of crisis. Like most other stories, it didn't end up being what I envisioned, but it's OK.

I wrote multiple stories about group struggles during this period, some of them: Untitled Story #53, Armed Forces And Civilians Face Off; Untitled Story #54, A Group Of People Visit The World's Tallest Building; Untitled Story #59, A Zoom Call To Die For; Untitled Story #61, Underground People!; Untitled Story #70, Yafreisy Takes Over The World.

Other stories were focused on individual struggles, among them: Untitled Story #55, A Man Keeps Re-Living The Same Day; Untitled Story #58, A Cinderella High School Baseball Team Heads To The National Tournament; Untitled Story #62, Underwater People!; Untitled Story #67, Correspondence; Untitled Story #74, Between San Juan And San Pedro, this last one being is based on a famous Argentinian folk lullaby song my mother used to sing when I was a kid, but given a little tweak to make it my own.

The last story I wrote during this period was a fun experiment. Untitled Story #75, Already Seen, turned out very different from what I initially wanted, but all the important elements are there; I can't complain.

I noticed that I kept defaulting to male characters and decided to go the opposite route. As a result, many of these stories are protagonized by female characters; some are average, others are indistinguishable from male characters, a few are good. The important thing is that I tried and will keep trying.

Fantasy, horror, and science fiction are very present in these stories; some of them were even inspired by Kaiju films, which I was watching a lot while writing this batch of stories.

Now, for the last 25 stories...

Days 76 Through 100

I was exhausted and creatively bankrupt, "maybe I should leave it here," I told myself multiple times, but I didn't; I pushed through, I made it happen, and it was during this period that I wrote some of my best stories, accounting for my little experience.

Here are five of those stories, not necessarily my favorites, but some of the most peculiar ones:

Untitled Story #76, Once Upon A Time In Rainbowland, was my first fairy tale. Of course, it is an allegory; I wouldn't want it any other way.

Untitled Story #84, The Quban Revolution is a retelling of the Cuban Revolution. I must apologize to the beautiful people of Cuba for my limited knowledge of their story; nevertheless, I did the best I could.

Aliens just invaded Earth! How does that affect YOU? That's what we explore in Untitled Story #85, Proletarians And Aliens. This is certainly a flawed story. The lack of real action makes it feel like a missed opportunity, but I'm OK with the result.

Untitled Story #90, The House is a gritty story about a reality we collectively choose to ignore because it does not affect us. Reading this can make you feel uncomfortable, and I'm not going to apologize for it. Like many other stories, this is an allegory, but I think it works well even if the "real" meaning is not immediately apparent.

Untitled Story #100, A Hot Summer Day, the last story I wrote. I think this reads like an episode of The Twilight Zone, but I'm probably just flattering myself. I wrote this the same day a national-level blackout hit the country. Coincidence? Yes, 100%.

I personally think the last ten stories or so are pretty solid in more than one aspect. They might not be perfect — of course, they aren't — but they are decent. Some of my best work, if I may say so myself.

And with that I say: the job is done!

What Did I Learn?

Since this post was almost a day-by-day update on the process of writing — I wrote different sections as I advanced in my journey — I'm planning to write in detail about what I learned from this experience in a separate post.

For now, I can say that I re-discovered what I knew all along: I am capable of creative output; we all are, and you should be doing that thing you have been longing to do but keep putting off. Come on, go do it, now!

What's Next?

Now, here's the big question: now what? I thought that after writing my hundredth story, I would write the hundred-and-first one the next day, but I'm tired. I learned so much during these three months and a third; I want to let that knowledge sit in my brain for a while.

I also want to keep challenging myself in new ways. I have wanted to create a comic strip for a long time. Maybe I should try 100 days of drawing? That remains to be seen.

Of course, I want to keep writing; in fact, I've been working on the outline of what I hope to be my first great short story. I have envisioned a 4,000-5,000-word story, but who knows, it may be longer! Oh, and said story is in fact an expansion of one of the one hundred stories I already wrote; it'll be familiar but bigger and better in every single aspect.

But that's for the future, hopefully before the end of the year; right now, all I want to do is finish Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei I-II, a video game I started playing more than three months ago and had to pause to dedicate myself to writing entirely.

Thanks for reading.