In Today’s Journal * The Bradbury Challenge Report * Coming Tomorrow * Of Interest The Bradbury Challenge Report Participating in any challenge is a great way to have fun and grow as a writer. The requirement is to write at least one short story per week, then let me know the title, word count, and genre per the format below. During the past week, the following writers wrote these new stories: Vanessa V. Kilmer “Cat Wrangler” 3117 Farce Christopher Ridge “Married to A Corpse” 2135 supernatural horror 2135 Christopher Ridge “Thank You For This Food I’m About To Eat” 1785 … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * On Audiobook Narration, Part 3 * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Never let your fear decide your future.” Unknown, via Jaime Buckley On Audiobook Narration, Part 3 Working with an Audiobook Narrator, for Indie Authors A guest post by Jason McGinty, an audiobook narrator Options ACX has two options for you to choose from for distribution: exclusive or non-exclusive. Exclusive means ACX has the exclusive rights to distribute your audiobook, and you are not legally allowed to publish it anywhere else. Non-exclusive means you do have the right to distribute … Read more

In Today’s Journal * On Audiobook Narration, Part 2 * Of Interest On Audiobook Narration, Part 2 Working with an Audiobook Narrator, for Indie Authors A guest post by Jason McGinty, an audiobook narrator What to do after you find a narrator? Once you’ve found a narrator, the narrator pretty much takes it from there. If they’re just pretending to be a professional like me, they’ll probably do all of the editing and production themselves, or they might hire a producer of their own, but that’s all up to them. ACX (and I would assume the other platforms too) have … Read more

In Today’s Journal * On Audiobook Narration, Part 1 * Of Interest On Audiobook Narration, Part 1 Working with an Audiobook Narrator, for Indie Authors A guest post by Jason McGinty, an audiobook narrator Hi there, I’m Jason and I narrate audiobooks. To be up-front with you, I’m kind of a n00b at this game. My source for all of what I’m about to tell you is either that it was revealed to me in a dream, or I’m making it up as I go. If I get anything wrong, it’s because the dream lied to me. To show my … Read more

In Today’s Journal * When Math Is Fun… and Freeing * Of Interest When Math Is Fun… and Freeing This is nothing important. I had an epiphany yesterday and thought I’d share it. I’ve long tried to keep up with my daily fiction and nonfiction word counts (not including emails, etc.), but since December I let my Annual Production spreadsheet slide. For whatever reason, it just doesn’t matter to me as much as it used to. Maybe because awhile back I stopped publishing a rolling tally of my numbers in TNDJ. Or maybe the reverse is the actual truth. Maybe … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * The Bradbury Challenge Report * About Audio Books * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Readers don’t connect with characters because they’re perfect. They connect with them because they’re human. … Flaws create authenticity.” Jenn Windrow in Writers in the Storm (see Of Interest) The Bradbury Challenge Report Participating in any challenge is a great way to have fun and grow as a writer. The requirement is to write at least one short story per week, then let me know the title, word count, and genre per the format below. During … Read more

In Today’s Journal * My Quote of the Day * The Opening Hook Is Not the Opening Proper * Please Read This * Of Interest My Quote of the Day “For goodness’ sake, do your best to stop worrying what the reader thinks of you, the writer. If you do your job and just tell the story, they’ll be so engaged with the story that they won’t even be aware a ‘writer’ exists on the other side.” The Opening Hook Is Not the Opening Proper I recently realized another topic I’ve never covered: The opening hook of a story or … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Hemingway, Part 4: Revision-Rewriting * Of Interest Quote of the Day “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know. And then continue from there.” Ernest Hemingway Hemingway, Part 4: Revision-Rewriting Wow, this Hemingway thing just keeps going. I think this will be the last post in what became a series, but I guess we’ll see. Introduction I’ve heard many assertions about writing advice from Hemingway. Some of them are true (for example, the Quote of the Day) and some are not. I recently … Read more

In Today’s Journal * About ​Hemingway, Part 3 * Of Interest About ​Hemingway, Part 3 My writer friend Andrew asked a few more questions, and those led to this post. My thanks to him. And while I’m thinking about it, here’s a link to subscribe to his Substack for new stories and updates on his books. As I said in my response (much of which appears below) I only wish he’d asked these specific questions before I published the Author Intrusion book. As it stands, I’m considering adding “A Pre-Introduction” to the beginning of the book to include some of what’s … Read more

In Today’s Journal * About Hemingway, Part 2 * Of Interest About Hemingway, Part 2 You can find the first post here. If I can switch over to being a critic  for a moment, maybe Hemingway used the dual meaning of guano to subliminally invoke the sense of smell, which he already also invoked with the “dust” (which he doesn’t specifically mention) with regard to the walls and the roof and the dirt floor. That’s all part of the iceberg that’s below the surface of the story. Now, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between posts, here’s … Read more