In Today’s Journal
* The Darling Members Club
* The Bradbury Challenge
* And Now….
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
The Darling Members Club
Like a few of you, I’m subscribed to Your Morning Serial, mostly so I can verify that each edition actually posts. But I’m also enjoying reading over my previous work each morning at 5 a.m. when it appears in my inbox.
However, reading over previous work can get interesting, and interesting isn’t always a good thing.
As I was reading yesterday’s post I found what I believe is a major glitch. I’ll even tell you that it appears in Chapter 10.
I won’t tell you what the glitch is, but my offer still stands from a few days ago. Read the offer here.
Just pointing out that glitch to me and explaining why you think it’s a glitch will earn you any of the prizes I mentioned in that offer.
There have been only five installments (two chapters each) posted through yesterday. You might have to start at the beginning of the novel if you want to figure out or verify the glitch. You can read the first installment here.
Good luck!
The Bradbury Challenge
The whole point of the Challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer. There is no cost. The only requirement is to write at least one short story per week. Feel free to jump in at any time.
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories:
- Erin Donoho “Help” 4200-word psychological suspense
- Loyd Jenkins “The Coffer of Hatti” 3125 Sword & Sorcery
- Vanessa V. Kilmer “Folding Back Time” 3268 Romance
- Christopher Ridge “Ashes in a Milkshake. Noir 2152
- Christopher Ridge “Family Dinner War” horror/dark humor 2513
- Dave Taylor “Jon Weider’s Bucket List” 2556 Time Travel
Congratulations to these writers.
And Now….
I’ve decided to make the TNDJ archives for 2023 and 2024 available free again in a fully searchable PDF format. So if you want either or both of those, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com and let me know. I’ll send them to you.
Especially if you’ve subscribed to TNDJ recently, if you don’t acquire and at least skim those archives, you’re missing a lot of great instruction on the writing craft that you can get practically nowhere else. And did I mention they’re free?
But you can only get them in one fully searchable PDF document (per year) by emailing me.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
How to Craft Accurate Fight Scenes I did not vet this. I recommend you read it, take what’s of value to you, and combine it with what I wrote in…
Topic: Writing Action Scenes and in my book…
I Have Been Having Fun With Sales Copy
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 450
Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty
Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Day 2…… 1110 words. To date…… 4360
Day 3…… 3323 words. To date…… 7683
Day 4…… 1656 words. To date…… 9339
Day 5…… 1413 words. To date…… 10752
Fiction for August..………………….. 7502
Fiction for 2025………………………. 534149
Nonfiction for August………………… 16520
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 184920
2025 consumable words…………….. 711455
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
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 on writing and publishing are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.