In Today’s Journal
* A New Short Story
* 2026 Fiction Words Per Day Challenge?
* A Change Is Coming
* Last-Minute Christmas Gifts for Readers
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A New Short Story
“Fire & Ice” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.
It’s also a good story. A little intense, and if I’d written it more recently I would have paragraphed it differently, but otherwise I wouldn’t have changed very much.
If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else. Gracias.
2026 Fiction Words Per Day Challenge?
Dean Wesley Smith recently announced a “2026 Words Per Day in 2026 Challenge.”
Dean’s challenge is for consumable words, meaning fiction and nonfiction (blogs, nonfiction books, but not emails etc.).
At least one writer I know is taking this challenge on herself, but not through Dean. That is admirable.
If any of you would like to do this challenge, I’d be tickled pink to start up the Run With Harvey challenge again.
I’ll even differentiate between a 5-day week and a 7-day week if you want to and if you let me know.
For the RWH challenge, the daily word count goal will be 2000 words per day (on average), but the words have to be publishable fiction.
You would report your numbers for the week to me every week before the Journal goes live on Monday. If you ‘miss’ or fall short one week, you would report your words anyway.
Remember, this is an average of words per day, not a strict 2000 words of fiction every day. So if you write fewer than 2000 on some days but write more than 2000 words on other days (and you will), you can pull this off.
Reporting your weekly word count to me via email once a week will help you hold yourself accountable.
There are no big prizes like in Dean’s challenge. But I’ll give you the same encouragement and it doesn’t cost anything to buy in.
If you want to do this, email me to let me know.
A Change Is Coming
I’m getting tired, folks. Increasingly other people refer to me as ‘old.’ Actually I’m 26, albeit with 47 years’ experience.
But I’ve been publishing TNDJ in one version or another almost constantly since early 2014. I even wrote and published TNDJ during the two years when I wasn’t actively writing fiction.
As a result, to date, I’ve passed along most of what I know about fiction writing. And really, passing along that information to help cut your learning curve is the main purpose of TNDJ.
So beginning with the new year, TNDJ will probably hit your inboxes less frequently.
I’ll certainly still publish an issue every Monday because I made a commitment to the challenge participants. I also suspect there will still be other posts when I have something to pass along ’cause I love to talk about writing fiction. But I can’t say how often those other posts will occur.
Not long ago I asked free subscribers to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Now I’m saying you might wanna hold off on that until you see what the new year brings. Frankly, I can’t be sure.
Last-Minute Christmas Gifts
for Readers
Contains 20 stories that cross the genres from noir to action-adventure to literary to science fiction to fantasy and more.
The anthology features 13 authors from bestsellers to prizewinning prolific professional storytellers to amateurs. And every story had its seed in a story or novel by Ernest Hemingway.
Echoes of Ellison contains 14 tales reminiscent of Harlan Ellison’s stories, ranging from the not-quite normal to the fantastic, from the tragic to the comedic, from the dark tale to the fairytale.
And for Writers
25% off Quiet the Critical Voice (and Write Fiction) At checkout, add coupon code MHGUD585KD.
25% off Writing Better Fiction At checkout, add coupon code Q9KFJT62D0.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: Cat Lovers Versus Dog Lovers
Christmas, Owning a Home, and Empty Mall Vibes
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 680
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 680
Writing of Blackwell Ops 53: Jack Striker | The Next Level
Day 1…… 2035 words. To date………… 2035
Day 2…… 2217 words. To date………… 4252
Day 3…… 3751 words. To date………… 8003
Day 4…… 2218 words. To date………… 10221
Day 5…… 2181 words. To date………… 12402
Day 6…… 1673 words. To date………… 14075
Day 7…… 1972 words. To date………… 16047
Day 8…… 2081 words. To date………… 18128
Day 9…… 2694 words. To date………… 20822
Day 10…. 2712 words. To date………… 23534
Day 11…. 1581 words. To date………… 25115
Fiction for December……………………… 25115
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 779762
Nonfiction for December.………………… 22520
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 287650
2025 consumable words………………… 1059843
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 122
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29