In Today’s Journal
* My Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Setting Goals for 2026
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
My Quote of the Day
“Plot is a device that critics look for and take note of after a story is written. So the root of ‘plotting’ lies in the deconstruction of previously written works. In other words, plot is a result of the characters running through the story, not something to be planned and laid out in advance. Plot is none of our business as fiction writers.” Harvey
A New Short Story
“A Special Treat” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.
If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else. Gracias.
Setting Goals for 2026
As I wrote in December 2024, I could have stolen quotes for this post from practically all of Dr. Mardy’s newsletter back then. You can read it here.
If you’d like to see some of the writing goals others set last year, visit the Journal website. There’s also a pretty good short essay there on Plots (see “Writers Ask”).
Anyway, if you haven’t yet, you might turn an eye toward setting your fiction writing goals for 2026. As always, I recommend setting a
Daily Word Count Goal
Why? Because like “pages,” “short stories” or “novellas” or “novels” isn’t a quantitative measurement. Words measure actual progress, and they don’t care where they’re used.
To set a daily word count goal, multiply the number of words of publishable fiction you write in an hour times the number of hours you’re able to write per day. Then increase the number a little to make you stretch.
My daily word count goal for most of the last 11 years has been 3,000 words per day. On average I write about 1,000 words per hour. That’s not fast. That’s only about 17 words per minute.
Hint: If you’re writing a lot fewer than 1000 words per hour (like 700 wph or fewer), chances are you’re focusing on words instead of Story.
When setting a daily word count goal it’s always a good idea to set one that makes you stretch a little. By that I mean you’ll meet it most of the time and exceed it occasionally if you really try. You’ll miss now and then too.
If you never miss, your goal is too low.
Weekly or Monthly Goal
The most common version of this is still a word count goal, and I still think it’s a good idea to divide it down to a daily goal. Smaller bites, so more motivating and easier to meet. Usually those who set a weekly or monthly word count goal write fewer than 7 (or even 5) days per week.
But if it works for you (meaning you approach your goal often, fail to reach it sometimes, and exceed it sometimes) who am I to argue?
Quarterly or Semi-Annual or Annual Goal
This is usually where folks already have an established daily word count goal and are deciding where they’d like to see the words allocated.
For example, if you have a daily goal of 1,000 words per day, that’s roughly 91,000 words per quarter or 182,000 words per half-year or 365,000 words per annum.
So maybe you’d like to write one long novel per quarter (or two long novels per half-year or four long novels per year). Or you could write more novels that are shorter.
Short novels are 25,000 to 44,999, novels are 45,000 to 79,999, and long novels are 80,000 and longer. (These are my own divisions, used only for pricing considerations.)
This is also a consideration for discoverability. If you write and publish one 90,000 word novel, that’s your name out there one time. If those words go into two 45,000 word novels instead, that’s your name out there twice (or in two different genres if you write in different genres).
If you’re purely a short story writer and your average short story is around 3,000 words, maybe you plan to write 30 short stories per quarter or 60 per half-year or 120 per annum. Not a bad goal to set.
You Can Also Set a Word-Count Goal Per Annum
I’ve set my annual word-count goal for one million words of published fiction for the past two years in a row and didn’t hit it either time. So for 2026, I’ve let it go.
I’ll probably keep my 3,000 wpd goal for 2026 On Days That I Write, but I anticipate fewer of those days in 2026.
I’m not burned out or anything silly like that. Not that ‘burnout’ is a silly concept, but I think you’ll agree the term is a bit silly to apply to a guy who’s written between 8 and 20 novels per year ever since he started writing.
I’ve reached a place where I just love telling stories. So I’m more concerned with putting words on the page (daily writing-day word count goal) than on ‘hoping’ to write a certain number of stories or novels or words.
Plus ‘reaching’ doesn’t motivate me anymore. It only makes my shoulders tired.
So set your goals however you want. I’d wish you luck, but luck has nothing to do with it. Luck has something to do with dreams, but nothing to do with goals. Reaching goals is a matter of perseverance and determination.
Achievements vs. Accomplishments
I’ve always seen a difference between Achievements and Accomplishments. (And feel free to reverse the terms if you want to.)
To me, reaching any goal is an Achievement. If reaching that goal makes a quantifiable difference in my life, it’s also an Accomplishment.
For example, if I write 3,000 words in a given writing day, that’s an achievement, but I’ve done that many times before. On a couple of days, I’ve written over 7,000 words in a day. So at this point, if I wrote over 8,000 words in a given day, that would be an accomplishment.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: Foolish Wit This is not the same as the post I mentioned in the first paragraph.
A Look Back At 2025 Workshops This is neither an endorsement for or recommendation against his Lifetime Everything subscription. I’ve always been better at cherry picking what I need to learn than in clear-cutting a whole forest, but you do you.
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 1040
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 1040
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date………… XXXXX
Fiction for December……………………… 31000
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 785647
Nonfiction for December.………………… 26740
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 291870
2025 consumable words………………… 1069948
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 19
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 123
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29