In Today’s Journal
* The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* A Pair of Great Testimonials
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Today’s issue of TNDJ is a little late, but I have a lot of great news to report. Please read on. (grin)
The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
The whole point of ANY Challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer.
There is no cost for any challenge I offer. The only requirement for Bradbury is to write at least one short story per week. The only requirement for the others is to write a certain number of publishable words of fiction per day/week/month.
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories:
- Balázs Jámbor “When a dream does not have an end” 2500 Fantasy
- Vanessa V. Kilmer “Trigger Warning” 3674 Adventure
- Adam Kozak “Faced with Immortality” 3794 Speculative Fiction
- Harvey Stanbrough “A Lovely Surprise in Belize” 3623 Erotic Fantasy
- Dave Taylor “The Hunter” 2,411 Thriller/Conspiracy
Congratulations to Adam Kozak.
Not only is Adam’s story this week the 52nd story per week in a row (a solid year), but he’s also written more fiction this month than he ever has before! WAY cool!
I know only a handful of writers who’ve completed a full year of the Bradbury Challenge. It’s an exceptional accomplishment. Now just keep it going.
Congratulations also to Dave Taylor for the excellent progress he’s making in the Bradbury Challenge and with a novel on the NaNo front.
And congrats to everyone in both the Bradbury and November Challenges for all the progress they’re making.
Even when it’s less than they hoped, it’s more than they would’ve written if they hadn’t tried.
A Great Testimonial
One writer who’s involved in the November Stephen King Challenge (Thanks, EC) emailed me with this gem:
“I travel a lot for work (I’m an airline pilot) and this last week’s schedule was particularly rough, but I still managed to find time and prioritize my spare time to get this done. That is usually the biggest hurdle for me.
“When life gets busy it’s easy to slip for a few days. Before I know it I’m totally out of the story and I find that it loses all momentum.
“I feel like part of the magic of writing into the dark is having to stay in your story world consistently, and the only way to do this is to write consistently. If I stray away too long, it’s like the spark goes out. Maybe the characters feel neglected, and no longer want to talk if I leave them too long.”
Along the same lines, thanks to Dave Taylor for the following quote:
“While The Sailor [NaNo novel] won’t hit 50,000 words by 11/30, I’ll be a heck of a lot farther on a novel than if I didn’t start. Of course, if I can hit 3,300/day I could get to 50K. Either way I’m going to be pretty darn close and extremely proud of my accomplishment.
“I don’t think I could even make up what is going on in the story. It just keeps getting stranger and more interesting. I almost don’t want to stop writing, I just to find out what happens next, but I do need to sleep.”
Thanks for that, both Dave and EC. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
If I may springboard off all of that, folks, committing to a writing challenge in any form really does help with your writing.
When you’re able, get into a challenge and run with it. You will not be sorry you did. I hope to offer more challenges similar to the September and November challenges in the coming year.
And of course, the Bradbury Challenge will be ongoing. Jump in. The water’s great!
The Writing
I didn’t get to the novella today at all. I wrote only on the novel, so a much more normal day of writing for me.
I suspect the novel will wrap today. Frankly, like Dave, I can hardly wait to see how it will end and to start the next one.
The excitement in today’s TNDJ is almost palpable, isn’t it?
You can join in the fun. Email me with your accomplishments in fiction and let all of us celebrate with you. Knowing others support what you’re doing helps.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Thinking of the Start of the New Year
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 740
Writing of Blackwell Ops 31: Jack Temple
Day 1…… 1620 words. To date……. 1620
Day 2…… 5016 words. To date……. 6636
Day 3…… 3466 words. To date……. 10102
Day 4…… 1235 words. To date……. 11337
Day 5…… 3188 words. To date……. 14525
Day 6…… 3933 words. To date……. 18458
Day 7…… 3187 words. To date……. 21645
Day 8…… 4081 words. To date……. 25726
Day 9…… 2198 words. To date……. 27924
Day 10…. 2621 words. To date……. 30545
Day 11…. 3315 words. To date……. 33860
Writing of “The Imp” (Erotic Fantasy)
Words brought forward……………… 3522
Day 1…… 4946 words. To date…… 8468
Day 2…… 3409 words. To date…… 11877
Fiction for November………………… 77804
Fiction for 2024………………………. 914936
Nonfiction for November…………….. 22350
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 356770
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,095,745
Average Fiction WPD (November)…. 3242
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 16
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 98
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 255
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: 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.