In Today’s Journal
* My Quote of the Day
* The Bradbury Challenge Report
* Interesting Facts…
* Numbers
* Release Date
* Of Interest
My Quote of the Day
“Even among those we admire, there are no extraordinary people. But there are some who—even burdened with the same human failings, frailties, and foibles that are common to us all—manage to do extraordinary things.”
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:
- Balázs Jámbor “Under Strange Sky Memories Awaits” 3400 Psychological Space Fantasy
- Vanessa V. Kilmer “Dirty Laundry” 3205 Romance
- Christopher Ridge “While You Rest” 2376 psychological horror
- Christopher Ridge “The Mustache” 3319 Absurd/ surreal
- KC Riggs “Deep Water” 1449 Paranormal
- Dave Taylor “The Red Hen Candy Dish” 2,263 Paranormal
- Glynn Young “Parent-Teacher Night” 2581 General
Congratulations to all of these writers.
Interesting Facts…
about the TNDJ Edition of the Bradbury Challenge
The TNDJ edition of the Bradbury Challenge has been running for over three straight years.
I first proposed the Challenge back on March 22, 2023 in “A New Personal Challenge”.
I reported the first writer (Bill Sinclair) to join me in the Challenge on March 28, 2023.
I publicly reported the Challenge results for the first time on April 9, 2023 in “Revisiting Fun in Challenges.” Chris Ridge and Tony DeCastro reported stories in that edition; Balázs Jámbor and Chynna Pace reported the next day; KC Riggs reported on April 14; and Robert J. Sadler reported on April 15.
From what I can tell, the first official, formatted “Bradbury Challenge Report” was on April 13, 2023.
Also from what I can tell, I started reporting the Challenge results every Monday in TNDJ on August 28, 2023. For context, back then I was on Day 8 of writing Blackwell Ops 9. (There are now 53 novels in that series alone.)
Great fun looking back, but what matters is what’s yet to come.
Numbers
When I start writing fiction again I’ll probably add the Numbers section to TNDJ again. It’s more imperative on me to keep it up to date when I’m reporting it ‘live.’
To be honest, since I haven’t been reporting my numbers in TNDJ, I’ve lost track even of the nonfiction numbers. Yesterday I looked back over most of May and all of June, then updated my Annual Production spreadsheet.
So far this year I’ve written 113950 words of nonfiction, all in TNDJ.
Of the completed months, May was the largest (31130), owing mostly to the fact that I wrote and posted the chapters of the Author Intrusion book that month. The smallest month was April, with 13,010 words.
Anyway, my personal decks are almost cleared. During my hiatus from writing fiction I’ve built a fence, refurnished and refurbished the Hovel, and completed several other chores that have been on my list for awhile.
I still have a little of that to do, but it’s almost finished. That’s in addition to the revamping and redesign of my publisher site and other electronic StuffLikeThatThere.
My only remaining “big” project is to figure out how to use Affinity Publisher to create ebook covers. I’ll get started on that today. If I learn anything of interest, I might blog about it here in TNDJ.
I know two TNDJ subscribers are interested. Anyone else? Email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com or let me know in the comments.
Note: If any of you own Affinity Publisher and use it for your book covers, feel free to write a guest post for TNDJ. I’d personally love to have someone cut my learning curve.
Of course, there’s always more of the electronic stuff to do too, but now that the “big” stuff—my publisher site and my online store—are finished, I can take care of the smaller stuff during breaks while I’m writing fiction.
When I start writing again—unless an exciting new character grabs me and drags me into a new saga or series—I’ll more than likely continue with the Blackwell Ops series. It would be nice to round off that series at 55 or 60 novels.
Release Date
Okay, yesterday I took a deep breath and uploaded the prepared interior and cover files for Writing Better Fiction to D2D for POD. With the files prepped by Tiffanie Gray, I was pleased to find uploading it was as easy as I hoped it would be. So that’s done.
I’ve set the release date for July 4, 2026 in honor of my bride’s birthday. Well, and in honor of that other thing: the 250th anniversary of the country.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: Admiration Mardy’s quote continue to provide me with inspiration.
On the Trail with an Arkansas Traveler A great little article about novelist Charles Portis (True Grit). Thanks to JGV for sending it along.
Feel-good of the week: See a lion cub try to imitate her dad’s roar.
10 Surprising Facts About Che Guevara