In Today’s Journal * For All Fiction Writers * A New Short Story * Reminder * Anyone Ever Hear of Bookstagram? * A Story About a Story * A Meme for You * Of Interest * The Numbers For All Fiction Writers If you haven’t visited the Journal website recently, there are now seven articles under the On Writing Fiction menu tab. Especially if you’re new to TNDJ, I suggest you check them out. All of them are derived from earlier posts, so the page is kind of a mini-archive. You can find the full archives and other gifts here. … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Self-Defeating Quote of the Day * I Got a Great Question Yesterday * Yesterday I Forgot * This Is a Busy Time of Year * Of Interest * The Numbers Self-Defeating Quote of the Day “I’ve written four books now and it always comes down to, do I have enough fortitude to keep going until I figure it out? Finishing the first draft is always the hardest part. The inner critic is deafening and problems abound. You just have to keep going. Books are made in revision. Nobody gets it right the first time. You can … Read more

In Today’s Journal * The Novel Wrapped, and the Writing * What Matters About Being Prolific * Of Interest * The Numbers The Novel Wrapped, and the Writing That makes 19 on the year. Woohoo! What’s more, I’m chomping at the bit to get to 2025 and my new annual goals of 22 novels and 1,100,000 words of published fiction. But I’m not big on sitting on my hands and waiting for a particular date to start writing. There are just too many stories out there waiting to be told. It also helps that I wrote this particular novel in … Read more

In Today’s Journal * A New Epiphany * TNDJ Challenges for 2025 * The Kris & Dean Show * Of Interest * The Numbers A New Epiphany As I picked up where I left off and started writing on the novel yesterday, I had a new epiphany. I started writing fine, but only a few sentences in, the story stalled. Now I’m deep into the story, and I suspect it will wrap in the next couple days. So when it stalled, I fell back on my old standby: You’ve heard me say it before: When the Story Sags, Just Write … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Holiday Gift Subscriptions Now Available * Ten Ways to Start 2025 with a Bang * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “It’s hard to believe since May of this year I have completed 34 short stories, a novel and two novellas. I’ll set new year’s resolution to start sharing them with the world.” Dave Taylor, in an email containing next Monday’s Bradbury Challenge input Note: For those following my numbers, I didn’t write yesterday. Caught up on my sleep a little instead. Dumped my daily average a little, … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting * Failing to Success * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “Give us 12 weeks and you’ll have a rough draft.” Subject line of an email from Writer’s Digest newsletter My first thought was, “Hey, give ME 12 weeks and you’ll have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 sparkling clean new novels. Published.” “What if you combined challenges? Like say you did a writing challenge combined with a publishing challenge. As an example: Set a goal for a certain number of new … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Writing Into the Dark (redux, redux) * On Taking Days Off to “Rest” * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “I have had a short story titled, “The day after ‘and they lived happily ever after’” noodling in my brain for a few years. Maybe today is the day I WITD with it.” Manisha, in a comment “The scale of the prize is vast: intellectual property accounts for some 90 percent of recent U.S. economic growth.” Alexander Hartley in the article linked in Of Interest Writing Into the … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * A New Short Story * Yesterday I Mentioned * Yesterday Also * I Finally Remembered * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “I gave WITD a fair try in September and wrote the most fiction words in one month that I had ever done in such a short time! So, no more proofing the dough, it will be time to start baking!” Tiffanie Gray A New Short Story “The Dawning of Dexter” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. Where … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Raw Emotion: Some Musings * Of Interest * The Numbers Raw Emotion: Some Musings A thought occurred awhile back as I talked with a friend who said the horror of one scene I’d written that evoked such fear that she had to take a day off from reading the story. I took the reader’s unease as a great compliment, albeit a left-handed one. In this case, I thought it might mean s/he didn’t want to read another book (of mine) in which similar scenes might occur. Fair enough. (Reader taste.) But it served only to encourage … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Another Spreadsheet Revelation * Results Begin to Trickle In * The Writing * The Numbers Another Spreadsheet Revelation Sigh. But that’s all right. I promised to share lows (and errors) as well as highs in the hope that both would cut the learning curve for someone, so here goes. Yesterday, I glanced back over my entire annual spreadsheet for this year. And I started thinking (with a frown), How in the world can I be so close to going over 1,000,000 words on the year when I’ve had several paltry months? I mean, in four of … Read more