For the most part, I’m a rational human. Perhaps too rational.

But that doesn’t stop me from having a superstition or two.

I think some of it comes from sports. I played both hockey and football growing up and I had to sit in the same spot and put my pads on in same order every time.

I carried some of these tendencies into my writing career.

I Always Publish on Wednesdays:

For the most part, I publish something everyday. But, except for a few rare occurrences, I try to put something up on Wednesday. I’ve always had luck on this day, between views, engagement, etc. Even before Medium I did this. But, even here, several of my biggest stories were posted Wednesday.

I Publish on Weird Times:

I don’t schedule that many posts, but when I do I post them just off the nearest hour. For instance, instead of 8:00 I’ll do 8:03. I did this once and the story did well so I kept doing it. I do either :03 or :07 for no real reason it just seems to work.

I Write Short Stories In One Sitting:

I have to finish a story when I start it. Once I start typing it out if I don’t finish it then I never will.

It doesn’t matter how long the story, two hundred words, or three thousand I will keep going until it’s done. If I ever try to write one over multiple sessions it always seems stale and the story never seems right and ends up not doing very well.

So, even if it’s an all day affair, I will finish that story.

I Won’t Write Until I Know The Last Line:

When I first started writing, I would start off strong, but the story would meander and lose its way and then I’d end up never finishing it.

Now, I work backwards. I start with the last line and once this happens the story always falls into place. Once I started doing this I stopped having false starts and I could turn out stories a lot faster. Now, no matter how good the idea is, I won’t start until I know the ending.