In Today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* December 31, 2025: That’s a Wrap!
* Guest Posts Welcome
* My Own 2025 in Review
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go.” Jeannette Rankin
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” Albert Einstein
December 31, 2025: That’s a Wrap!
First and foremost, I wish you all a safe and happy New Year’s Eve and a successful 2026.
As I announced here awhile back, this will end the ‘almost every day’ publication of TNDJ. It’s been a fun and exciting journey, but everything has to end eventually.
- I’ll continue to publish TNDJ at least every Monday for those included in the challenges.
- Knowing me, anytime I gain new knowledge about writing or publishing that I believe might help some of you cut your learning curve, I’ll publish that too.
- The archives for the past four years (2021 – 2024) are still available, free by email in fully searchable PDF files. Just email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
I didn’t compile an archive in a single document for 2025, but you can find those posts by scrolling or searching either at the TNDJ Substack or the Journal website.
Feel free to copy and paste the post into a Word document and then save them as a searchable PDF file. I don’t mind you talking about them in writers’ groups or critique groups, but please give me credit and drop the URL now and again. All of this stuff is intellectual property.
Guest Posts Welcome
I haven’t mentioned this for awhile, so I thought I’d toss it out there again. There’ll probably be a lot of space in TNDJ for guest posts after January 1, 2026.
If there’s a writing or publishing topic you know well, consider sharing that knowledge with others by writing a guest post for TNDJ.
Whereas many posts in the new year will go out only to paid subscribers, guest posts will go out to everyone, so be sure to include URLs to your work, website, Amazon Author page, social platforms, etc.
Note: I will not entertain posts that encourage the fear-based myths of fiction writing: outlining/plotting, rewriting X number of times, etc. etc. ad nauseam. But anything else is welcome.
Why do I not allow posts that support the myths? Because writers can find that stuff literally anywhere else on the internet, at conferences, in critique and writing groups, etc.
But more importantly, because all of those activities are needless wastes of time that either delay the actual writing or second-guess the characters who are living the story.
You don’t have to write about writing into the dark either. You can write about
- what works for you in your genre,
- your typical day as a writer,
- where you get ideas,
- what or where you recommend for publishing (and why), and
- any number of other topics.
If you’re in doubt about whether your topic would make a good guest post for TNDJ, I welcome queries at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. Any editing I do on your post will be necessary, light, and only for clarification.
I won’t pay money for guest posts, but I’d be happy to link to your website, Amazon Author page or Facebook (etc.) page, to books you want to promote, and so on. (Please provide the specific URLs so I can turn them into links.)
My Own 2025 in Review
I ended 2025 with 19 novels on the year and 123 novels since I started back in October 2014 (even though I didn’t write fiction for two years of that time). I didn’t write any fiction since BO-53 wrapped. Sort of casting about for my next big thing.
2025 was actually a step back for me since I finished 20 novels in 2024. Yawn, stretch, I don’t care.
For my other personal numbers, I wrote 36 short stories this year, but no new novellas. So my short story count is +/-310, and my ‘lifetime’ novella count is steady at 10.
In 2025 I wrote 785,647 words of published fiction (down from 2024 by 70451, basically two short novels). If you’re wondering, that’s a mean average of only 2152 words per day. Numbers are amazing because they don’t lie.
Note: If I’d been able to manage my daily goal of only 3,000 wpd, I’d have cleared a million by 95,000 words. (grin) Yep, that’s all it takes. To hit a million words, it takes an average of 2,740 words per day. About two and a half hours. Sigh.
I also wrote 294,300 words of published nonfiction on the year. I wrote no new nonfiction books in 2025, so that includes only my TNDJ posts and advice to mentoring students.
So my ‘consumable words’ total on the year is 1,072,378. I’m good with that.
I hope your own 2025 was a success, however you define the term, and I hope 2026 will only be better. Remember, the only valid comparison for a fiction writer is how you did today with how you did yesterday.
Tonight I’ll raise a glass of Jameson’s to you and to your future success.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
If You Wonder About Time Scroll down to “Beneath the Tick-Tock.” Invaluable if you’re a philosopher or science fiction writer. And a lot more in this issue.
8 January Regular Workshops Okay, but be smart. If you can find a book by Dean or me that covers the same topic, maybe buy that instead.
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 890
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 890
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date………… XXXXX
Fiction for December……………………… 31000
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 785647
Nonfiction for December.………………… 29170
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 294300
2025 consumable words………………… 1072378
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 19
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 123
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29