In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Reminder, and About the Bradbury Challenge
* The Writing
* Kristine Kathryn Rusch
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“The key word is ‘create.’ The conscious, critical mind can create nothing. It can only construct.” Me
“Traditional publishers don’t help writers get an audience. Traditional publishers buy up copyright for the term of the copyright so that they can have assets on their accounting books.” Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Thirty dollars per hour writing a blog post that has little resale value or $1000 per hour writing stories that can sell for decades. It’s really a no brainer.” Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Reminder, and About the Bradbury Challenge
Those of you in the Bradbury Challenge who are reporting your weekly numbers through the Journal, remember the deadline is tonight at midnight Arizona time (or whenever I post the Journal tomorrow morning).
For those of you on the Eastern Time, that’s 2 a.m., and for Central Time, 1 a.m. West coast, 11 p.m. for you. Sorry.
For you who are not in the challenge currently, please know that you can jump in (or jump back in) at any time.
The only “requirement” of the Bradbury Challenge is that you write at least one short story per week. That’s it.
At least one participant has been writing at least one short story per week for the past 36 weeks. While writing a novel.
Anyway, you don’t even have to tell me about it. Just do it for yourself. Writing a story per week is a great way to increase your inventory as a writer, a super-great way to try or practice WITD, and a good way to find stories that will later become novels.
But if you would like me to report your story details, send me the title, word count and genre by the deadline each week. Please use this format:
“Story Title” 1234 Genre
Please, no commas, extra spaces, etc.
As I mentioned, the loose deadline is Sunday at midnight Arizona time. The firm deadline is whenever I publish the Journal on Monday morning. I might publish as early as 12:01 a.m. or as late as 6 or 7 a.m. Arizona time.
If I receive your info after I publish the Journal on Monday morning, you aren’t late. You’re early. (grin) I will include it in the following week’s report.
Of course, it’s better to get your stories finished and reported earlier in the week anyway. Then you don’t have to worry about the deadline at all. Or you can write a second story (or more) per week. I’ll report whatever you send me.
No Vignettes Please — I’d rather not report slice-of-life vignettes. By definition, vignettes have a Setting, Character(s), and Conflict, but no Resolution. A short story has all four of those elements.
Some long-form writers have also reported their weekly progress with novellas or novels they’re writing. Some others just write on their own but talk with me privately via email about how they’re doing without wanting me to report it.
I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn’t look good in a short skirt or tights and a sweater (those of you who know me, can I get an amen?), but I’m a pretty good cheerleader when it comes to your writing. (grin)
The Writing
Well, for the second day in a row, I had a less-than stellar day yesterday. I missed my word count goal, which is annoying but fine. I was tired and my brain was jumbled, so I called it a day about an hour early.
No biggie on that. The average will creep back up.
And then one reader pointed out a couple of typos in one line of yesterday’s post. In fact, two bad typos in the space of three words, and one of the words was “a.” Hard to get a typo on that one. Though I guess I could’a typed an “s” instead or something.
Anyway, I hope the typos didn’t distract the rest of you from the point of the post.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Among the most decorated fiction writers and editors in history, KKR is hanging up her blogging pen. She just wrote and published her final “Business Musings” post. (See “Of Interest”)
Believe me, I understand her reasons.
If you find this Journal of value, consider making a one-time or recurring donation. If you can’t, please consider sharing it with friends.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Business Musings: All Good Things
What Makes a Great WordPress Theme for Authors? The author did not mention responsiveness, the ability for the theme to “respond” to whatever the user is using to read the blog.
The best theme I’ve ever found is Generate Press by Tom Usborne. Look it up. You own’t be sorry. I use it on every website I own. Each of them looks as good on any monitor, from a 24″ down to a phone.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 820
Writing of Blackwell Ops 14: Charlie Task
Day 1…… 1359 words. To date…… 1359
Day 2…… 3002 words. To date…… 4361
Day 3…… 3349 words. To date…… 7710
Day 4…… 1687 words. To date…… 9397
Day 5…… 2271 words. To date…… 11668
Fiction for November…………………… 64036
Fiction for 2023…………………………. 382680
Fiction since August 1………………… 47376
Nonfiction for November……………… 24230
Nonfiction for the year……………… 252120
Annual consumable words………… 631293
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 8
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 7
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 79
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 235
Short story collections…………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.