Bradbury Writers, and A Major Change

In today’s Journal

* The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* If You Use Dropbox
* A Major Change (Read This)
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting

To take part, write at least one short story per week (or add to your novel), then submit the story title, word count, and genre to me each week for publication in the Journal on Monday.

The whole point is to have fun and grow as a writer. You can join or rejoin the challenge at any time. There’s no cost. You can even do it on your own, without reporting numbers to me or anyone else.

During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported their progress:

Short Fiction

• Balázs Jámbor “”On fantasy music and on life in that other world” 3600 Fantasy
• Loyd Jenkins “Blasters in Coldwater” 1210 Space Western
• George Kordonis “ Endless Loop” 2330 Urban Fantasy
• Adam Kozak “Diana’s Delightful Bread Delivery Service” 1713 General Fiction
• Christopher Ridge “Knock knock” horror 2200

Long Fiction

• Erin Donoho * Sandy Beach Stables* 15000 words this week! (26,700 words, done, a short novel) Congrats, Erin!

Note: I will continue posting info on the Bradbury Challenge even in the new Journal mentioned below in A Major Change.

If You Use Dropbox

See Tiffanie Gray’s excellent comment and my response.

A Major Change

Nope, I’m not stopping the Journal completely. But—

I’ve decided to discontinue publishing the current (free) iteration of The (Almost) Daily Journal, effective May 31, 2024.

That will round-out the archives at nine and one-half years. That is a lot of free learning. This is a business decision. Most new business ventures are given only half that time to succeed.

Through May 31, I’ll continue posting what I believe is valuable information that you can use to begin or enhance your writing career. Through that date, you can still subscribe free or read the Journal in whatever venue.

I’ve already disabled Stripe subscriptions. Using that platform, for me personally, was an inane idea in the first place. Stripe requires a minimum of $5 per month to subscribe. I don’t like that.

The Donation link will remain at the end of each post. Using it, you can subscribe to the new iteration of the Journal with a recurring montly donation of as little as $3 per month. Or you can make a one-time donation.

On or about June 1

I will remove most of the free subscribers from the subscription list.

I will also resurrect the Journal for those few writers and donors (currently about 15) who have indicated with recurring or one-time donations or by commenting regularly, etc. that they find it of value.

Yesterday, I emailed those steadfast folks to let them know about the new Journal. But oversights happen. If you didn’t receive that email and believe you should have, please email me.

In yesterday’s Journal

I mentioned that apparently the Journal isn’t as important as I believe it is. That’s true. After all, aspiring writers can get free writing advice from almost anywhere out there.

Of course, most of that advice comes from beginning writers—those with fewer than say 10 novels or 50 short stories published (or none at all)—or those so-called “prolific” writers who begrudgingly force themselves to write one or two novels per year.

Most of that advice will also teach aspiring writers to remain dependent and lacking in confidence instead of confident and independent, as I constantly teach. But hey, different people have to learn hard lessons in their own time and in different ways.

And God knows there are plenty of books on the topic of writing fiction. Never mind that most of them push the same fooliish myths about fiction writing.

But who am I to argue? If an aspiring writer wants to be

• Dependent on others for approval in the form of critique groups or partners,
• Dependent on “beta readers,” and maybe even
• Dependent on literary agents and traditional publishers

then their path ahead is clear.

At least until they finally gather the courage to take a deep breath and step off the path. That’s something even I can’t do for them.

I’ll talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Episode 919: Trad vs. Indie

50 Years Learning is important.

Stephen King reads from You Like It Darker Mark your calendars. He’s reading from a new short story collection.

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 710

Writing of Blackwell Ops 23: Buck Jackson

Day 1…… 1217 words. To date…… 1217
Day 2…… 2154 words. To date…… 3371
Day 3…… 5757 words. To date…… 9128
Day 4…… 5433 words. To date…… 14561
Day 5…… 2248 words. To date…… 16809
Day 6…… 3446 words. To date…… 20255

Fiction for April…………………….….… 20255
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 246047
Fiction since October 1………………… 549103
Nonfiction for April……………………… 6690
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 135410
2024 consumable words……………… 381457

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 6
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 88
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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