THE 3/1/52 CHALLENGE

How one year and a challenge from Ray Bradbury rewired my writing life.

- BY MICHAEL LA RONN

Recently over dinner, a writer friend asked me about the hardest thing I've ever done in my writing career.

He wanted to know—of my 100+ books, which one nearly broke me?

The seafood restaurant around us glowed with soft tealights, the air full of salt and quiet conversation. Between the clink of cutlery and the mellow chords of a jazz piano, he looked at me, completely serious.

“Which book kept you up at night?” he asked.

“All of them,” I said.

My friend shot me a half-amused, half-annoyed look. I paused and thought it over. The waiter brought us a bottle of wine, and I could feel my friend's irritation rising as we filled our glasses.

“Novels are easy,” I said finally. “Short stories are where writers are made.”

And then I told him about the hardest writing challenge I ever completed: the 3/1/52 challenge.

THE 3/1/52 CHALLENGE

The 3/1/52 challenge was issued by prolific science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) as a way for young writers to hone their craft. He details the challenge in the first few minutes of a 2001 speech called “An Evening With Ray Bradbury,” which you can find online. (The challenge is also known as the “Ray Bradbury Challenge.”)

Put simply, the 3/1/52 challenge is a reading and writing challenge where you must:

• read 3 short works every night (a poem, an essay, and a short story), AND

• write 1 short story every week for 52 weeks.

Most writers know about the writing part, but it’s the daily reading that makes this challenge truly difficult. (Technically, Bradbury advised writers to do the reading challenge for 1,000 days, but if you can make it to 365, you win.)

Bradbury believed writers should start with short stories. They are quicker to write and offer more chances to hone your craft, unlike novels, which take far longer to teach the same lessons.