Facebook contest leads Stratford resident to write first book

Michael Smidts didn’t set out to write a book.

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In fact, he hadn’t written much of anything, outside of school assignments.

But that all changed when Smidts joined the Write Academy Facebook group. Entering a weekly contest prompt in that group – a challenge to write exactly 100 words about a topic – Smidts wrote his first short story, Silence. Despite not being chosen as that week’s winner, the challenge sparked something in him and eventually led to the release of his first book, One Hundred Words, last year.

The book is a collection of 215 stories that are each 100 words, embracing the format of that Facebook group challenge. The book features a wide range of stories in an eclectic mix of genres – from science fiction to romance to satire.

“I always joke that I wrote the book out of spite for not winning the contest, but that’s not true. I kept doing it, and as I kept doing it, I thought to myself, ‘Why do this for the contest?’ They kept pilling upo I decided to put them together as a book,” Smidts said.

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Smidts was also inspired by his wife, Kate, to take the creative leap.

“She encouraged me to do it, and dared me to dream,” Smidts said.

The project also let Smidts show his children they “can achieve anything” that they put their hearts into, he said.

“Just a couple years ago, if anyone asked if I could write a book, I’d be like, ‘no way that’s not me,’” he said. “I think at first, I had a little bit of imposter syndrome – kind of feeling like this isn’t something I do. This is something that successful people do, and then my wife helped me realize that I can do that.”

With the book taking exactly 12 months to write – from April 2, 2022, to April 2, 2023 – Smidts was inspired to arrange it into four sections that matched the four seasons of the year. While some of the stories were inspired by his personal life, Smidts was also spurred by world events and famous people.

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“We see a big shift in what used to be frowned upon and shunned is now being embraced, so I’m a big advocate for that. . . . There’s some historical events and figures. So there’s one about Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Helen Keller,” he explained.

Aiming to connect with readers, Smidts purposely did not use any proper names, instead relying on pronouns to make his characters come alive.

“It’s all he, she or I because, in 100 words, if I said Bob or Sally, there’s not enough length for the reader to connect with whoever Bob and Sally is. So if I just say he or she or I, then I think it just has more of a connection with the reader,” he said.

While it became easier to write an impactful short story as he progressed, he occasionally finished with more than 100 words and found himself having to cut chunks of what he had penned.

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“My technique was just to have an idea and write it, and when I was done, I checked the word count. So some of those stories turned into two, or some of the stories took a direction I didn’t expect just by trying to pare it down to 100 words. As time went on, I was able to kind of figure it out more,” he said.

Even while writing the book, Smidts said he did not expect to produce a lot of copies and was planning of self-publishing on Amazon to give a few copies to family and friends. But after connecting with local publisher Barbara Storey of Storeylines Press, her book can now be found on Amazon, the Stratford Public Library and Fanfare Books

“She was interested, and took it on, and took a chance on me and got it published. And since then, it’s kind of grown,” Smidts said.

While he hasn’t done much writing since its release, Smidts is already thinking about his next project.

“I have some ideas floating around my head. (Soon) I’ll start putting the ideas down on paper and seeing where I expand to. I think I wouldn’t do this kind of (book), so I think my next one definitely be a full novel or novella,” he said.

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