In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Your Weekly Bradbury Reminder
* If Anyone Else Missed It
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“We are only 1/3 of the way through the year, so more than enough time to get back on track and have a great year.” Dean Wesley Smith
A New Short Story
“The Journey of Jackson Trimble to Fifth and Main” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. It’s a little SF story. Go check it out. It’s free.
If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else.
Your Weekly Bradbury Reminder
Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get your Bradbury Challenge story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.
Some of you other folks could pop in too. I know there have to be more than four or five short story writer out there, right?
C’mon, take a shot. It’s only a short story per week, and here you’re only reporting the title, word count, and genre.
Of course, the Stephen King Challenge (write 1000 words per day every day on average) is ongoing. Feel free to jump into that one, and you can report your numbers to me every week or every month if you want.
If Anyone Else Missed It
Apparently there were 41 views of Blackwell Ops 42: Sam Granger, Chapters 1-3 yesterday. But although I know she was subscribed, one reader wrote to say she hadn’t received that post.
If anyone else missed days 1 or 2 of BO-42: Sam Granger, you can view them here:
To be sure you don’t miss any of the others, click Subscribe at the bottom of either of those posts.
The posts should arrive in your inbox every day at 5 a.m. Today, Chapters 6-7, tomorrow, Chapters 8-9 and so on until May 13 when you’ll get the end of the story in Chapters 28-30.
And yes, if you read on your phone, etc. you should be able to download the app too from the initial email you receive.
Happy reading!
Of Interest
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 360
Writing of “Garage Sale Find”
Day 1…… 1254 words. To date…… 1254
Day 2…… 2134 words. To date…… 3388 done
Writing of Blackwell Ops 43: Sam Granger | The Quiz Master
Day 1…… 2242 words. To date…… 2242
Day 2…… 3315 words. To date…… 5557
Day 3…… 3192 words. To date…… 8749
Day 4…… 3439 words. To date…… 12188
Day 5…… 3017 words. To date…… 15205
Day 6…… 4041 words. To date…… 19246
Day 7…… 2706 words. To date…… 21952
Day 8…… 3302 words. To date…… 25254
Fiction for May………………………… 9396
Fiction for 2025………………………. 387809
Nonfiction for May…………………….. 1660
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 102750
2025 consumable words…………….. 48049
Average Fiction WPD (May)………… 4698
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 9
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 26
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 113
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 296
Short story collections……………………. 29
Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
If you are able, please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!
If you’re new to TNDJ, you might want to check out these links:
- On Writing Fiction
- Gifts
- Writing Resources
- Oh, and here’s My Bio. It’s always a good idea to vet the expertise of people who are giving you advice.
Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.