In Today’s Journal
* Nightfall is Live
* In Case You Missed It
* Silly Numbers Stuff
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Nightfall is Live
The first installment of my action-adventure novel Nightfall went live yesterday at Your Morning Serial. Go check it out. It’s free. And feel free to leave comments.
I also changed my mind about posting installments only once a week.
Every day was obviously too much for many readers, but I felt once a week was too long between installments. So I went through on Sunday and rescheduled a bunch of installments.
Now one installment will go live every Monday and the next installment will go live every Wednesday. So two installments per week. We’ll see how that works out.
I wrote Nightfall and the entire 4-book Nick Spalding series a few years ago, but it stands up well as an example of all the things I talk about here in TNDJ:
- the necessity of a strong opening
- setting and character description that pulls the reader deeper into the story
- good action scenes, and
- realistic dialogue
Of course, for me that’s fairly easy since all I have to do is follow the characters through the story. I write what happens as it happens, and then, in real time, I write how the characters react in what they do and what they say.
In other words, I trust my characters to convey the story that they, not I, are living. Doing that only makes sense. And trust me, it’s a lot easier than making stuff up.
In Case You Missed It
The Stephen King Challenge is up and running again. Thus far one brave soul has joined.
If you were were involved in this challenge before, this is an excellent chance to jump back in and maybe kickstart your writing.
- Just send me the title of your novel or novella and your word count thus far.
- Once you’ve done that, write at least 1000 words per day (on average) as you progress through to the end.
- Then once a week before TNDJ goes live on Monday, send me your total words for the week and your revised running total for the novel, and I’ll report it in Monday’s TNDJ.
Yes, you could do this on your own. I’m just giving you a place to report your numbers to help hold your feet to the fire. (grin)
Also in case you missed it, the TNDJ archives are available free again in searchable PDF format. To get the archives from 2021, ‘2, ‘3, and ‘4, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
Silly Numbers Stuff
Although I had a pretty good writing day a couple of days ago, it had been so long since I’d recorded any new fiction numbers that I forgot to add them to my spreadsheet.
So for the past couple of days some of my numbers below were wrong. They’re corrected now.
I’m still expecting to finish the current novel later this week. That’ll make 14 on the year.
Then if I can write two more novels in October, two more in November, and two more in December I’ll miss my annual goal of 22 novels on the year by only two. Not too shabby.
I think after this one is finished I’ll step back from Blackwell Ops for awhile. Or maybe the current novel will wrap the series.
Of course that previous paragraph is all conscious mind stuff. I’ll just have to wait and see what the characters come up with.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Spook, Spuck, Spack, Speek, Spouk… Strictly for fun. Who knew studio heads were so playful?
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 590
Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty
Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Day 2…… 1110 words. To date…… 4360
Day 3…… 3323 words. To date…… 7683
Day 4…… 1656 words. To date…… 9339
Day 5…… 1413 words. To date…… 10752
Day 6…… 3135 words. To date…… 13887
Day 7…… 3338 words. To date…… 17225
Fiction for September……………… 6473
Fiction for 2025………………………. 50622
Nonfiction for September.………… 6780
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 193030
2025 consumable words…………….. 726038
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
Short story collections……………………. 29