In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* I’m Copyediting Again
* Subscription Reminder
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“[Y]our Opening Critiques offer … was the best 15 bucks I’ve ever spent, bar none.” Peter Armstrong, writer and Journal reader, in a comment
Thanks for the endorsement, Peter.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” Henry Ford as reported in 1440 Daily Digest
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.
As I have said many times before, you can also conduct your own private, personal challenge without reporting your numbers etc. to anyone. I offer this listing only as a way to help you hold your own feet to the fire and keep your challenge going.
The whole point of such a challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer. You can join or rejoin the challenge at any time. There’s no cost.
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported their progress:
Short Fiction
- George Kordonis “hall of shadows” 2500 Supernatural Horror
- Adam Kozak “May 18th, 1980″ 1409 Science Fiction
I’m Copyediting Again
for a limited number of clients, at least for now.
If you have a solid grounding in Openings, Setting, Scene, Grammar, and Punctuation, you probably can copyedit your own work. (You can get that grounding and a great deal more by purchasing and reading Writing Better Fiction.)
If you don’t have that grounding, chances are you need a good copyeditor.
In addition to a Plain Jane copyedit, through imbedded comments I also teach as I go, explaining why I did what I did to your manuscript. As a result, you get filet mignon for the price of ground round.
You can see my qualifications, what I offer and how I offer it, and my rates at HarveyStanbrough.com.
Please read the entire page before you decide.
Subscription Reminder
On May 31 I will send out the last free edition of this iteration of the Journal. The New Journal will launch on June 1.
To continue receiving the Journal after May 31, be sure you click the Donate Now link at the bottom of this post.
You may contribute a recurring donation of $3 per month or a one-time donation of $36 or more to continue reading the Journal.
As I have often said, you can also download, free for now, the full archives of the Journal reaching all the way back to 2014 in fully searchable PDF. I recommend downloading the archives for 2023 first.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Expectations A great post. (Reposting since I botched the link yesterday)
The Numbers
The Journal………………………………450
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date…… XXXXX
Fiction for May…………………….….… 9734
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 313519
Fiction since October 1………………… 616577
Nonfiction for May……………………… 12100
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 166440
2024 consumable words……………… 479959
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 8
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 90
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 are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
To be sure you continue receiving the Journal after May 31, subscribe free, then click the Donate link at the end of this post and make either a recurring donation of $3 per month OR a one-time donation of at least $36. In doing so, you’re effectively paying me 5 cents per hour to provide you with the Journal every day. Donate Here. Thank you!