In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Expanding the Bradbury Challenge
* Why Amazon Kindle Unlimited?
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“I’m Larry Niven, and I daydream for a living.” Larry Niven, at a conference, as reported by Peggy K.
“That myth (writing is hard) seems to come back every now and then. I blame all the English teachers I had who fawned over published writing and made us go ever word of say Shakespeare’s Hamlet as if it was magic. The guy sat on his butt and wrote. Thats all.” George K.
“Take advantage, because, once your book is published, your time is up, and you will have no more opportunities to fix, tinker, fluff, or polish.” Ruth Harris (see the second item in “Of Interest”)
Well, unless you’re a self-published author. Always do your best the first time through, but yes, if you want to change anything, change it and upload a new document.
Expanding the Bradbury Challenge
As I’ve mentioned here before, and as several of you have attested, the Bradbury Challenge is a great way to jumpstart your writing.
But it dawns on me that short stories aren’t everyone’s cup of whatever. I am a prime example. I enjoy writing short fiction, but I prefer writing novels. Some of you do too.
First and foremost, you should write what you want to write, what you enjoy writing.So I’ve decided to expand the Challenge, or rather my reporting of it.
If you’re working on a novella or novel and would like to use the Journal to help keep you going, please feel free to jump into the Challenge. Just send me the title of your work, your word count for the week, and the genre (if you want). Same deadline—Monday morning before the Journal goes live.
If you’re serializing via WattPad or Kindle Vella or some other format of which I’m not aware, feel free to send a link along with your information. I’ll add the link so others can visit and read, give you feedback (if you want it) and so on.
From now on, I’ll break the Challenge Report into two sections: Short Fiction and Longer Works. And yes, you can file a progress report in both Challenges if you want to.
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following Short Fiction writers reported their progress:
Short Fiction
- Erin Donoho “Different” 3800 words Historical YA
- George Kordonis “Claude’s Final Hour” 2355 words Science Fiction
- Alexander Nakul “And the zucchini was fried” 1001 words Horror
- Chynna Pace “The Magic Typewriter” 6057 words Fantasy
- Christopher Ridge “The Good Samaritan” 3000 words Crime
- K.C. Riggs “A Break in the Storm Clouds” 3161 words Fantasy
- Frank Theodat “Feast” 3300 words Horror
I look very forward to celebrating with you a new start in your writing.
And congratulations to KC Riggs for having finished another novel, the sequel to The Widow’s Circle series. Available in ebook and paper.
Why Amazon Kindle Unlimited?
In addition to a comment from which I stole the first Quote of the Day above, in a separate comment Peggy K. also asked an excellent question: “What’s the rationale for going exclusive to KU for 3 months? Why not go directly to D2D?”
For years, I’ve gone directly to D2D myself, and I’ve recommended it. Now I’ve switched gears a bit and recommended going first through Amazon KU.
That’s based on glowing recommendations from other professional writers, especially bestselling author Vin Zandri, who also trusts his creative subconscious and writes into the dark. To me there can be no greater source.
To catch up (and so I don’t cheat by plagiarizing my own earlier post, please read, “On Amazon Kindle Unlimited, and a Question of Backup”.
Specifically, under “Bestselling Authors Opine on Amazon Kindle Unlimited,” read what Vin Zandri and bestselling Romance author Diane Darcy had to say about Amazon KU.
Those two comments, more than any other reason, are why I plan to take my current novel, via posting to Vella first, to KU before taking it to D2D. And why I recommend you do the same.
And if you want further motivation for writing fast and rapid release, read “Speaking of Vin Zandri and Productivity” a little farther down that page.
If you’re able to write every day or most days, I also recommend using Kindle Vella. You can see my take on that by reading the second “Hint” below “You DO Know About Draft2Digital, Right?” and then reading the next post, “Kindle Vella” at https://hestanbrough.com/kindle-vella/.
Seriously, click through to those links. There’s a lot of information there. Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Google sunsets Domains business…” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/google-sunsets-domains-business-and-shovels-it-off-to-squarespace/.
See “The 3 R’s of a Successful Professional Writing Career” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-3-rs-of-a-successful-professional-writing-career/.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 790
Writing of Blackwell Ops 9: Cameron Stance
Brought forward………………………… 4087
Day 1…… 1595 words. To date…… 5682
Day 2…… 2101 words. To date…… 7783
Day 3…… 2573 words. To date…… 10356
Day 4…… 1588 words. To date…… 11944
Day 5…… 2135 words. To date…… 14079
Day 6…… 2019 words. To date…… 16098
Day 7…… 3067 words. To date…… 19165
Day 8…… 1562 words. To date…… 20727
Day 9…… 2616 words. To date…… 23343
Fiction for August……………………… 29859
Fiction for 2023………………………… 144406
Fiction since August 1………………… 27243
Nonfiction for August…………………… 22440
Nonfiction for the year……………… 172340
Annual consumable words………… 316746
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 2
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)… 232
Short story collections…………………… 31
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.