In Today’s Journal
* Happy Easter
* Last Day of the Easter Sale
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Happy Easter
Whatever the day means to you, whether sunrise or other church services, or hiding eggs for the children or grandchildren or for other adults, or picnics or cookouts or any or all of the above, I hope it’s a peaceful day for you and yours.
Last Day of the Easter Sale
- Writing Better Fiction is 33% off until midnight, April 20. At checkout, add coupon code VCP2YKDNDD.
- Any Omnibus Novel Collection is 33% off until midnight, April 20. At checkout, add coupon code 4ZNAIG7TDF.
The Writing
The novel’s going great and I see no end in sight. And I’m enjoying it as thoroughly as I have over the past 5 days.
Today I also derived a short story from it (“Annie Delaney”). Of course I’m only counting the 82 additional words I had to add to make it a stand-alone short story.
Then I wrote another one that also stands alone but expands on “Annie Delaney” too.
I also heard from a guy (another Marine too, so a brother in that way) who attended some of my live seminars a decade or two ago and wants me to copyedit his autobiography. Of course I’m looking very forward to doing that for him.
So between all of that and having had a story accepted for Down & Out Publishing’s forthcoming anthology, True Pulp, the month of April has truly been a blessing for me thus far. I hope it’s the same for you.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: “The Pursuit of Happiness”
How (and Why) To Define a Strong Author Brand This is a repeat. I finally read it, and it’s a really great article. I even linked to it as a resource over on HarveyStanbrough.com.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 300
Writing of “Aspen Delaney” (Romance)
Day 1…… 6525 words. To date…… 6525
Day 2…… 0082 words. To date…… 6607 done
Writing of “Blue Aspen” (Erotica)
Day 1…… 1547 words. To date…… 1547 done
Writing of Blackwell Ops 42: Sam Granger
Day 1…… 2873 words. To date…… 2873
Day 2…… 1873 words. To date…… 4746
Day 3…… 3717 words. To date…… 8463
Day 4…… 2353 words. To date…… 10816
Day 5…… 3236 words. To date…… 14052
Day 6…… 3767 words. To date…… 17819
Fiction for April……………………….. 67417
Fiction for 2025………………………. 334367
Nonfiction for April…………………….. 13280
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 94810
2025 consumable words…………….. 422667
Average Fiction WPD (March)……… 3548
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 8
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 19
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 112
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 289
Short story collections……………………. 29
Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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- On Writing Fiction
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