Top Five From the Barnett Hive
A challenge finally accepted
Again, late to the party. Or just me sleeping under a rock. Yesterday and today I noticed a trend of some of my favorite writers on ILLUMINATION. Each of them was posting a story that included five of their favorite stories (a few of each I’d read) they’d written.
And I said to myself I said, “Self? Why are they all of sudden posting five of their favs?”
Thankfully one of these stellar writers included a link to a recent (three days ago) challenge from the founder of ILLUMINATION, Dr Mehmet Yildiz where he challenged each of us to include five of our favorite stories.
Wow, three days. I’m such a doofus and seemingly out of touch with what’s going on around me. Wow, just wow.
After thinking about it a bit, it occurred to me since the recent change from claps to reads I should examine my favorites from the numbers of reads. Look at it this way. If the story has a high read count then of course it’s going to be one of my favorite stories, even if I didn’t really enjoy writing it that much. The fact that more than a handful of people took the time to read it is what makes writing worth it all.
Okay, so I’m jumping back on the challenge train with five of my own. Here’s five from the Barnett hive.
This sucker, written June 17th of this year is my commentary on those writers who believe the way to make money is to tell everyone else how to make money. It’s still gaining traction with a current read count of 314 reads and clap count (I know, claps don’t matter anymore. But they do to me) of 2.5K.
Of course, it wasn’t (the C-word), but then it still seems to have a modicum of visibility to the readers for some strange reason.
The next favorite story of mine is a story about me. Unabashedly, I throw out a completely narcissistic full-on glamor shot of me as the cover photo. Then I proceed to give all of you a five minute me session about a topic very familiar to me. Me. This story was published on the 5th of April of this year and currently has 163 reads and a clap count of 1.2K. Since then, it took almost four days to reach its shelf life which around here is about three days and twenty hours longer than normal.
As my rants go even this one surprised me. I put my satirical tongue firmly against my cheek and whipped out this story on what it takes to make it here. All you have to do is follow my simple instructions and in no time you’ll be a money-making wizard. As always, it reached it’s “read by” date quickly, but not before garnishing 2.1K claps and 104 reads.
Another satirical piece that totally stunned me with a high read and clap count was my recent advice rant about new writers giving the writing community advice on what they need to write and how they should do it to make it big.
Really?
This piece was published June 22nd of this year and I think it might have reached its shelf life although I noticed a couple of reads on it yesterday. In a short span of three days, it gained 126 reads and 1.7K claps.
Okay, I’m going to veer off course for this last story. This series piece had nothing to do with a Henry James story. In fact, it was a complete divergence from anything I’ve written the entire time I’ve been writing here. It didn’t do that well on either the read count or the clap count, but it is my all-time favorite story.
This story was to be another novel, another book. Even to this day, I don’t understand my reasoning for turning the premise into a short story, and strangely enough, a series here. But the long and the short of it is:
I.LOVED.WRITING.THIS.STORY!
So there you have it, readers. Four of my top producing stories, and one story I so thoroughly enjoyed writing, that I wish I hadn’t written it so I could write it all over again.
I hope you enjoy them.
Thank you so much for reading. You didn’t have to, but I’m certainly glad you did.
Let’s keep in touch: [email protected]
© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.