In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* My Quote of the Day
* The whole point
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“Every character in the world exists in all of us.” Steven Van Zandt, musician (E Street Band) and actor (The Sopranos, etc.) See Of Interest.
My Quote of the Day
“This whole discussion draws close to supporting the ridiculous notion that writing fiction is some sort of an elevated calling, like the priesthood. It isn’t.
“Why do I write? (Shrug.) Why does a carpenter build? Why does a mechanic repair engines?
“I write to lend my fingertips to my characters so they can manipulate the keyboard, to share with the world the stories that they, not I, are living. Their worlds and stories are endlessly more interesting than mine.” Me, in a comment on Dr. Mardy’s post (see Of Interest)
The whole point
of posting this issue was only to get the quotes above and the items in Of Interest below out to you.
Hope the rest of your weekend is wonderful. Back tomorrow with the Bradbury Challenge and maybe some other stuff.
Of Interest
Steven Van Zandt Talks About The Sopranos Short video.
Ray Bradbury’s birthday, reimagined as a celebration of reading
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: Writers
Writers of the Future Contest Rules (Repeat) I urge you to go for it. No entry fee, and you can enter up to four times per year. Thanks to Emilia P. for this reminder.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 250
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
Fiction for August..………………….. 7502
Fiction for 2025………………………. 534149
Nonfiction for August………………… 16070
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 184470
2025 consumable words…………….. 711005
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
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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If you’re new to TNDJ, you might want to check out these links:
- On Writing Fiction
- Gifts
- Writing Resources
- Oh, and here’s My Bio. It’s always a good idea to vet the expertise of people who are giving you advice.
Questions on writing and publishing are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.