In Today’s Journal * Welcome * A Few Giveaways Are Ongoing * Help Others Find You * One More Personal Goal * Of Interest * The Numbers Welcome Welcome to all new TNDJ subscribers! Whether you found TNDJ via Substack or Facebook or Twitter or my buddy Vin Zandri or Dean Wesley Smith or wherever else, welcome. In TNDJ my goal is to pass along all I’ve learned as a prolific professional fiction writer. By prolific, I mean I’ve written and published over 100 novels, 10 novellas, 270 short stories, 16 or 18 nonfiction books, and thousands of blog posts … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Don’t Set Improbable Writing Goals * The Writing * Of Interest * The Numbers Don’t Set Improbable Writing Goals I know. Negative advice. Ugh. I usually don’t post negative advice here in TNDJ, but this one feels right. I almost wrote “don’t set ‘impossible’ goals,” but short of delving into the realm of the obviously ridiculous, in my world nothing is impossible. By “obviously ridiculous” I mean don’t set a writing goal that you know is impossible to reach. For me, that would be setting a goal to write fifty-two 25,000-word-minimum novels on the year. Or … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Using the Challenges as a Challenge * The Writing * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “I’ve done well for the first week of January. Made over my weekly word count and only missed one day of hitting my daily count. “I’ve also stuck to my fiction first thing for 30 minutes goal. This keeps me coming back & I think reinforces that writing new fiction is most important. “I was almost ready to email that I wanted in on the Stephen King challenge, but I decided to … Read more

In Today’s Journal * A Sample “Annual Production” Spreadsheet * There’s Always a History * The Writing * The Numbers A Sample “Annual Production” Spreadsheet Yesterday a writer asked for a “blank” spreadsheet showing the formulas I use, etc. Problem is, if the spreadsheet is blank, there won’t be any formulas. (grin) So I did a quick mock-up example derived directly from the Annual Production spreadsheet I use every day. It shows not only the formulas but how they work for both monthly totals and cumulative totals, day by day and month by month. I also wrote a fairly detailed … Read more

In Today’s Journal * The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting * Top Ten Things Every Writer Should Know * The Numbers The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting The whole point of the Challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer. There is no cost. The only requirement is to write at least one short story per week. During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories: Vanessa V. Kilmer “A Stranger Storybook Ending” 3513 Fairytale Adam Kozak “North Side Racket” 3890 Noir Harvey Stanbrough “A New Threshold” 2390 Romance Dave … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day (and Commentary) * Correction * The Order of Narrative Bits and Dialogue * If You Don’t Follow Dean Wesley Smith * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “It’s not the process of writing I love, it’s discovering something new and then telling others about it.” Dr. Mardy Grothe (see Of Interest) Commentary Dr. Grothe went on to write, “For me, reading and researching is like panning for gold and writing is like sharing the nuggets.” He was talking about discovering, compiling, and sharing with others quotations on various topics. … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * A New Short Story * Re Advice from 52 Authors * A Blast from Pro Writers Writing (2019) Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “Apple agrees to settle $95M class action lawsuit … [which] alleges Apple’s virtual assistant Siri recorded users’ conversations without consent and shared them with third parties, contradicting the tech giant’s privacy commitments.” 1440 Daily Digest under “Quick Hits” (January 4, 2025) This is exactly why I’ve never allowed any Siri or Amazon Alexa, etc. into my home. Also great fodder for a story idea. … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Challenge Reminder * 2025 TNDJ Archives? * My Schedule * The Writing * A Few Notes on Grounding the Reader in the Opening * Of Interest * The Numbers Challenge Reminder Today is Friday. If you’re in or beginning the Bradbury Challenge this week, your story info is due via email to me by Sunday midnight Arizona time (so 2 a.m. Eastern?). Here’s the format: Author Name “Story Title” 1234 Genre The 1234 is the word count. (grin) Might be a good idea to get it in sooner if you’re in the path of the heavy … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * The 2024 TNDJ Archives Are Here! * Yesterday * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “Writing is like driving at night. You can see only as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. Doctorow, in James McInerney, “Author, Author: An Interview with Doctorow,” in Vogue magazine (Nov. 1984) “You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * The Novel Wrapped * My Official Personal Goals for 2025 * The TNDJ 2025 Challenges * The Waller Files * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “My word average per day for the [December] challenge was less than 1K but I’m still proud of myself because I managed to complete a novella and the 23K story is now being proofed/proofread. I should have it up for sale on Amazon by the first or second week in January.” Magz “I’m planning at least 1 story a day for the … Read more