In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Welcome
* Finished the Novel
* In Case You Missed It
* A Bit of Self-Promotion
* Suspending Guest Posts
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“It’s a rare and wonderful thing to watch a successful writer build something right in front of you. Lean into this opportunity, it’s a good one!” J. Kevin Tumlinson (repeating this to fit with the info below)
Welcome
Welcome to Alexander N and any other new subscribers or readers of the Journal. I hope you will find it useful.
Get the Archives and other free downloads at the Journal website. And I don’t do the ambush thing requiring an email address. Just click the links and a PDF will download in a new page.
If you wanna see my tired old mug, here’s a video where Vin Zandri and I are chatting about writing and a bunch of other stuff.
Finished the Novel
The novel wrapped yesterday at about 7 a.m. with only 1307 words.
I thought my little streak of writing fiction every day would end at 14 days. That would have been fine. I often take a day or two off before I begin a new novel.
But around 8 a.m., a thought popped into my head. I turned to the keyboard again and started writing.
This will (probably) be a one-off novel, though my characters have a way of starting series, and I never know until the first novel ends. (grin) But I’m not complaining. It’s a good problem to have.
The title of the new novel is The Hell Minder. The word count thus far is below, in Numbers. So I met today’s word count goal too, with a total of 4137 words between the previous novel and the new one. (grin) That’ll work.
And as promised, I’ll post whatever I write on the new novel at 4 p.m. this afternoon on the Writing in Public substack. Sounds like it might be a really good read for this time of year, what with Hallowe’en coming up. (grin)
In Case You Missed It
I learned only yesterday that despite my having posted “A New ‘Stanbrough Writing in Public’ Substack” in this Journal on October 22, it wasn’t listed in my substack posts.
I finally figured out why. Apparently Substack tagged it as going out on October 21. And maybe didn’t send it to Journal subscribers.
If you missed it, you can read that post here.
That led me to double-check to see whether they’d sent the extra posts in the Writing in Public series I sent out on October 23. I think they did, but just in case, here’s every post, in order, that I’ve sent from the Writing in Public substack:
Blackwell Ops 12: Nick Soldata (Chapters 1 – 10)
Blackwell Ops 12: Chapters 11 through 20
Blackwell Ops 12: Chapters 21 through 26
Blackwell Ops 12: Chapter 27 through 30
Blackwell Ops 12: Chapters 31, 32 (When you get there, yes, I’m aware of the typo in the title. grin)
Blackwell Ops 12 Ends: Chapters 33 and 34
And that brings it all up to date. Thanks for your patience.
If you aren’t already subscribed, hit the Subscribe button at the bottom of any of those and you’ll get to see the beginning of The Hell Minder today at 4 p.m., published on Substack as I write it.
It will be only a few chapters per day, so maybe 15 minutes of reading. I only wish some of my writing mentors had done this sort of thing.
I do realize most of you are writers
And I know better than anyone you can’t sell other fiction writers on reading your fiction.
But since I’m also your writing instructor, part of the reason I’m writing into the dark in public is so you can
- see that I practice what I preach and it actually works, and
- so you can possibly learn something that might be new to you from the guy whom you trust to teach you writing.
Come along and have some fun. (grin)
First Review
Of Blackwell Ops 12: Nick Soldata—my first reader, who keeps me from looking like a complete dweeb, wrote this note:
“In reading this, I became consciously aware for the first time how everything you write—all of the descriptions of settings and people, all the activities along the way of researching the target, dealing with whatever intermediary the protagonist has to deal with for information, weaponry, etc., all of the protagonist’s thought processes as he’s considering his options and making his plans—all slowly but inexorably build tension and suspense until the moment of the hit.”
Thank you, Russ. Good to hear.
Suspending Guest Posts
For the time being, I’m suspending and/or postponing publication of guest posts in the Journal. Apologies for any inconvenience. I’m having trouble fitting them in.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Vin Zandri chats with Frank Theodat
… On Intellectual Property And Ownership IP defined, etc.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 820
Writing of The Hell Minder (novel)
Day 1…… 2830 words. To date…… 2830
Writing of Blackwell Ops 12: Nick Soldata (novel)
Day 1…… 3683 words. To date…… 3683
Day 2…… 3186 words. To date…… 6869
Day 3…… 3315 words. To date…… 10184
Day 4…… 3260 words. To date…… 13444
Day 5…… 3175 words. To date…… 16619
Day 6…… 3649 words. To date…… 20268
Day 7…… 3061 words. To date…… 23329
Day 8…… 3705 words. To date…… 27034
Day 9…… 3237 words. To date…… 30271
Day 10…. 3566 words. To date…… 33837
Day 11…. 3033 words. To date…… 36870
Day 12…. 4327 words. To date…… 41197
Day 13…. 3009 words. To date…… 44206
Day 14…. 1307 words. To date…… 45513 (done)
Fiction for October…………………… 80383
Fiction for 2023………………………… 297925
Fiction since August 1………………… 183378
Nonfiction for October……………… 24360
Nonfiction for the year……………… 222700
Annual consumable words………… 520565
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 6
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 6
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 77
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 234
Short story collections…………………… 31
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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.