Earlier this year, I thought it would be cool to make an advent calendar featuring a short horror story for each day. This turned out to be a lot more work than expected, but well worth the stupid amount of time it took.
Each week during the spring and summer I wrote a new Christmas story. I finished 22, added a couple of other things (thanks, @muffichka!), gave them to my friend Emma to do the make look good, and sent everything to a printer.
When the box first arrived, I was convinced that the printers had made a mistake. But no, that’s what over 1,500 A5 sheets look like. And I had to fold and sticker each one.
In some ways, this whole project was an example of the sunk cost fallacy. I’d not considered all the costs and I’d not estimated how much time it would take. But I was too far in. Nothing else to do but set to folding-up a couple of calendars each day.
The stories made it out in good time for December 1st, and it’s been delightful to see people opening and enjoying them. Everyone seems happy – although they’ve not reached the more unpleasant stories yet.
This was a stupid, ambitious project, but I’m glad I did it. Some ideas are so infeasible that you look for a way to make them happen.
The worst thing is, I’m doing this next year. I’ve got prompts for over 60 more potential stories, some of which I’ll be working on this month. Some things are so ridiculous, they’re worth doing more than once.