In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* More on Selling Direct
* Invitation to a Challenge
* On Earning with Substack
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“In two more weeks (after this one), the challenge will have been going half a year! Pretty amazing.” KC Riggs
“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” (grin) P.J. O’Rourke
Selling Direct, from Vin Zandri
For more on selling direct to readers, please watch Vin Zandri’s YouTube recording. You can find it at https://www.youtube[dot]com/live/qh-bPT8bebU.
Invitation to a Challenge
When I first started this Journal way back in 2014, I did so to pass along to other writers what I knew, what I was testing, and the results of my experiments.
But I also started the Journal for one selfish reason: to help hold my own feet to the fire. When you report your writing numbers to someone else, it motivates you to keep going. In turn, the writing itself becomes a streak, and that also keeps you going. Ever since then, I’ve reported my progress in the “Numbers” section below.
I’ve said before I wouldn’t be a professional fiction writer today if it weren’t for what I learned from Dean Wesley Smith. That’s true.
But I also wouldn’t be a pro if I hadn’t taken a deep breath and dived into the three main things I learned from him: Heinlein’s Rules, that it was perfectly all right to trust myself, and Writing Into the Dark.
He and his blog are also the reasons I started the Journal. I wanted to pass along the golden key: believing in yourself.
All these years later, to help you—other writers and would-be writers—trust yourselves and take that plunge, I issued the Bradbury Challenge: to write a complete short story once a week. To help motivate you, I also offered to report the title and word count of your stories here in the Journal every Monday morning.
That’s been almost six months ago. Yep, it’s already been almost six months! In that time, KC Riggs just turned in her 24th short story. She’s also the one who reminded me that in two more weeks (after this week) the Challenge will have run for six months. Pretty impressive.
KC isn’t the only one, of course. A few other writers are keeping pace, either from the beginning or after having jumped into the Challenge later. One writer just rejoined the Challenge this past reporting period. So the whole thing has been a huge success so far.
Now, as I reported a few days ago, I’m opening up the Challenge to all fiction writers. You might look at it as an ongoing NaNoWriMo, but without the “intentionally write sloppy” part. Do your best the first time through, spell check it, and then move on to the next story or novel.
Reporting your numbers is important. For one thing, the numbers build up very quickly when you’re motivated to write. For another, and maybe more importantly, engaging in a challenge and reporting your numbers gives you a reason to write.
How much farther ahead will you be if you start reporting your numbers this coming Monday than if you wait to start at some later date?
Also, I’m a pretty good cheerleader if I do say so myself. (grin)
To repeat the information from my original post,
I’ll continue reporting short story titles and word counts, of course. But if you’re working on a novella or novel and would like to use the Journal to help keep you going, please feel free to jump into the Challenge.
Just send me the title of your work, your word count for the week, and the genre (if you want).
Same deadline—Monday morning before the Journal goes live. As for your weekly numbers, approximations are fine.
If you’re serializing via WattPad or Kindle Vella or some other format of which I’m not aware, feel free to send a link along with your information. I’ll add the link so others can visit, read what you’ve written, and give you feedback (if you want it).
From now on, I’ll break the weekly Challenge Report into two sections: Short Fiction and Longer Works. And yes, you can file a progress report in both Challenges if you want to.
When you’re ready, welcome aboard.
On Earning with Substack
This was a good article and important enough that I moved it up here from the “Of Interest” section. I strongly recommend you read it. It’s important and timeless. I even added it to my Writer Resources over on HarveyStanbrough.com.
See “On moving from Patreon and earning a steady income” at https://on.substack[dot]com/p/grow-31-laura-kennedy.
From the summary—”Instead of creating distinct, ongoing series for paid subscribers, Laura adds paid perks to her free posts, including voiceovers and Chats. This offers paid readers a richer experience around Laura’s best work.”
Got my mental wheels turning.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Bulwer Lytton 2023” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/08/bulwer-lytton-2023.html.
See “Doctors pull out a 3 inch live worm from woman’s brain” at https://interestingengineering.com/science/3-inch-live-worm-from-womans-brain. Any horror or suspense writers out there?
See “US Pentagon’s ‘Replicator’ will churn out thousands of drones” at https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/us-replicator-thousands-of-drones. Star Wars anyone?
See “Google’s DeepMind unveils platform to permanently watermark AI-generated images” at https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/29/23849107/synthid-google-deepmind-ai-image-detector.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 880
Writing of Blackwell Ops 9: Cameron Stance
Brought forward………………………… 4087
Day 1…… 1595 words. To date…… 5682
Day 2…… 2101 words. To date…… 7783
Day 3…… 2573 words. To date…… 10356
Day 4…… 1588 words. To date…… 11944
Day 5…… 2135 words. To date…… 14079
Day 6…… 2019 words. To date…… 16098
Day 7…… 3067 words. To date…… 19165
Day 8…… 1562 words. To date…… 20727
Day 9…… 2616 words. To date…… 23343
Day 10…. 2696 words. To date…… 26039
Fiction for August……………………… 32555
Fiction since August 1………………… 32555
Fiction for 2023………………………… 147102
Nonfiction for August…………………… 23810
Nonfiction for the year……………… 173710
Annual consumable words………… 320812
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 2
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)… 232
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.