In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Use the Wright Werd! * The Numbers Quote of the Day “The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” BB King “Use the Wright Werd!” a guest post by Dan Baldwin I am justifiably critical of AI narration errors, such as, Lucille Ball was married to Daisey Arnez. The motorcyclist daredevil wasn’t named Evel Needle. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was filmed in the dessert. The film L.A. Confidential read as Louisiana Confidential That said, writers and editors in print media have made their … Read more

In Today’s Journal * The TNDJ Challenges Report * Roberta Jean Bryant’s “7 Laws of Writing” * Where to Submit, Revisited * Update on the True Pulp Anthology * Of Interest * The Numbers The TNDJ Challenges Report In a way this feels like a new beginning, and I’ve been looking forward all week to posting this. I’m excited to host and report on three separate challenges now. The potential for writers breaking free and having fun writing is excellent. And yes, you may participate in more than one challenge at a time. TNDJ has over 220 subscribers now, and … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Opening A WooCommerce Store on My WordPress Website * Of Interest * The Numbers Opening A WooCommerce Store on My WordPress Website a guest post by Sylvia Auclair I decided that I wanted to start selling my work myself rather than depending solely on Amazon. I have only published my short stories, individually and in small collections, and I felt that the price I had to charge for them on Amazon was just too high. Would you pay $2.99 for a short story? I needed to get my work someplace where I felt it could be … Read more

In Today’s Journal * A New Short Story * TNDJ Contests Reminder * Where to Submit Your Short Stories * Of Interest * The Numbers A New Short Story “Focus, a Hit, and an Egress” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free. If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else. TNDJ Contests Reminder Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get info about your various TNDJ Challenge results in to me before the Journal goes live … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Learning Pacing from Film * My Personal Take on “Fictional” Characters * Of Interest * The Numbers Learning Pacing from Film I was recently blessed to read “How Goodfellas Reinvented the Gangster Film”, as published by BBC In History, a weekly newsletter I receive. As I’ve said many times before, even when genres don’t overlap, techniques that are valid in one genre are almost always valid in others. That includes the literary genres—essay, short story, novella, novel, stage plays, and screenplays (film)—as well as the commercial genres: thriller, mystery, romance, SF, and so on. If you … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Focusing Down * About Lawrence Block * On Personas and Pseudonyms * Genre Envy, Part 2 * Of Interest * The Numbers This is a long post, but all of it’s tied together. Focusing Down I’ve talked at some length before about the value of focusing down with your description. Focusing down on some details is an excellent way to pull the readers more deeply into the story. It’s a way to put the reader in the story with the characters. Chapter 3 of Nightfall, almost the whole chapter, is an excellent example of what I … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * The NEW TNDJ Challenges * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “Readers will return again and again to richly immersive worlds.” Kailee Pedersen (see Of Interest) “Details can lend authenticity to the setting, but can also be used to set up plot twists, foreshadowing, or simply as imagery to additionally convey mood, tone, and characterization.” Kailee Pedersen (see Of Interest) The NEW TNDJ Challenges Since I’ll be reporting every Monday on both the Bradbury and Stephen King challenges, I’ll combine them under The TNDJ Challenges. I’ve also revised … Read more

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 … Read more

In Today’s Journal * The Bradbury Challenge: Expanded! * The Stephen King Challenge Resurrected * The Power of a Streak * Of Interest * The Numbers The Bradbury Challenge: Expanded! The Bradbury Challenge is easily the longest-running challenge I’ve ever issued in TNDJ. Back in the day, Ray Bradbury advised writers who want to learn to write fiction to write at least one short story per week for a year because nobody can write 52 ‘bad’ short stories in a row. Truedat. Now, the whole point of the Challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer. But not … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Will WITD Work For…? * Guest Posts Welcome * I’m Having Fun Again Too * Of Interest * The Numbers Will WITD Work For…? A new subscriber to TNDJ (Thanks, Matt M!) is also reading through Writing Better Fiction. He wondered whether that non-technique of writing into the dark would also work for nonfiction. The answer is Yes. Mostly. Depends on what sort of nonfiction you’re writing. If you’re writing service repair or owner’s manuals or other tech manuals, no, WITD probably doesn’t apply. The subject matter is too technical. It has to be too precise. … Read more