Eh, Why Not?

by

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Eh, Why Not?
* Of Interest

Quotes of the Day

“One day, you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.” Paulo Coelho

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Roy Amara (for you SF writers out there)

Eh, Why Not?

I hadn’t planned to post an edition of the Journal today. I had planned to write this morning (and tomorrow morning) to put a cap and a start of writing on the years. And I will still do that. I’ll add at least one session (about 1000 words) to the novel today and much more tomorrow.

Later today, I’ll watch three college football games that promise to be entertaining. I watched three yesterday as well. I’m an SEC junkie. I prefer watching promising players display their talent before they go pro and become far too full of themselves.

I also planned to pre-stage a few free stories over on Stanbrough Writes. And by the way, I just posted a new one over there yesterday. If you aren’t subscribed, you can see it at https://harveystanbroughwrites.com/pete-and-the-angel/.

If you want to subscribe to the Stanbrough Writes substack and receive the stories in your inbox, you can subscribe at https://stanbroughwrites.substack.com/. Naturally, it’s free.

The main reason I’m posting this is to also put a cap on the year with the Journal and to pass along the links in “Of Interest,” especially that first one. From what I’ve read so far, it has some great tips and ideas in it.

I’ll cap the Journal year on January 1 when I post the final fiction numbers for 2022. Ugh. I don’t look forward to seeing all those zeros. (Did you know the plural of zero, the noun, is “zeros” but the plural of the verb form is “zeroes”? I didn’t until a moment ago when my brain tripped over the word.)

And dusted off and brought forward from yesterday’s post, may you all have a happy, enjoyable and safe New Year’s Eve. And when tomorrow finally gets here, remember to include a daily word-count goal and possibly other writing challenges in your resolutions. Because eh, why not?

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Tea Leaves: Year in Review 2022” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/tea-leaves-year-in-review-2022/. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, not only looking back but some great nuggets of advice.

See “How Will BookTok Change Publishing in 2023?” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/how-will-booktok-change-publishing-in-2023/.

See “The 7 most inspiring book cover trends of 2023” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-7-most-inspiring-book-cover-trends-of-2023/. Of course, this is only one person’s opinion.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 420 words

Writing of Santa Fe: A New Office (novel, WCG8, Santa Fe 3)

Day 1…… 2815 words. Total words to date…… 2815
Day 2…… 2034 words. Total words to date…… 4849
Day 3…… 2650 words. Total words to date…… 7499

Total fiction words for December……… 67478
Total fiction words for the year………… 282452
Total nonfiction words for December… 24850
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 222930
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 505382

Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 5
Calendar Year 2022 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2022 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 71
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. I convey the stories of my characters. Because It Makes Sense, I trust them to tell the story that they, not I, are living. This greatly increases my productivity and provides the fastest possible ascension along the learning curve of Craft because I get a great deal more practice at actually writing. It will do the same for you if only you trust it.

4 thoughts on “Eh, Why Not?”

  1. Harvey, I’m thinking about posting short stories in the new year. Now that you’ve been posting on Substack, would you recommend that as a platform to publish short fiction, or do you think Patreon might be a better choice? Do you find that posting stories to Substack helps with discoverability, as opposed to just posting them to your author website? Do readers find you organically through the platform? Or is it like everything else where what you post gets lost in an ocean of other writers unless you do some marketing for it? I guess I could always cross-post to both Substack and Patreon, as long as there’s no exclusivity weirdness. Just wondered if you knew whether one platform was better than the other Thanks!

    • Hi Chynna,

      Up front, I know nothing about Patreon. For reasons I’ll keep to myself, I don’t like them. That said, a lot of others like Patreon, so you’ll just have to do your own research.

      I like Substack because you can go paid or free. I think Medium might be the same, but I’m not sure. I believe readers can search for “free short story” etc. on Substack and therefore find my site and my stories. So in that way it helps with discoverability. Again, I think Medium is about the same way.

      I cross-post to my own website and to Substack for both my short stories and for my almost daily Journal.Substack makes it easier for those who want a subscription. Medium probably does too, but I haven’t had a reason to look deeply into Medium yet. I spend almost all my time writing. But now I’m off to watch football. (grin) Hope this helps.

      • Thanks, Harvey! That helps a lot. I think I’ll probably go with the website + Substack combo, but like you, I end up just spending all my time writing. My goal for the new year is to actually do something with all the stories I keep writing instead of just piling them up while I move onto new stories. My problem is I always fall off Heinlein’s 4th rule because I have too much fun writing new stories (grin)

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