In today’s Journal
* Social Media
* The Purpose of My Bradbury Challenge
* Short Story Prize Opportunity
* The Writing
* Of Interest
Social Media
Well, I established a MeWe account. Immediately it felt a lot “cleaner” than Facebook. Not sanitized by any means, but not riddled with disease and unreasoning hatred either. And MeWe doesn’t manipulate the snot out of everything the way Facebook does.
All of that said, I honestly don’t know whether or how long I’ll stay on MeWe either. It isn’t that I’m not social at all, but I realized two things:
One, my primary purpose for wanting something like MeWe is so I can engage with readers and promote my fiction. And of course, that isn’t what the platform is for. Engagement, yes, small talk and chitchat, yes. Promoting books and stories, not so much.
Two, this Journal serves as my social media outlet. On here, I avoid hatred, strong biases and politics in any direction. I share some personal things (maybe too much?) but mostly I just talk writing.
I don’t mention my own fiction very often except as tallied in the “Numbers” section, and that’s only 1) to hold myself accountable and 2) to show you what is possible if you put your fingers on the keyboard and just write.
So even MeWe, good as it is, probably won’t hold my interest very long. I write the Journal, and I share it via Substack and Twitter and now Substack Notes (similar to Twitter). And maybe, for me, that’s all it’s supposed to be.
The Purpose of My Bradbury Challenge
First, my purpose in opening my challenge to others was not for me to challenge them. It was to help them challenge themselves. My reporting numbers for them is strictly my way of giving them a place to report, a way to help them hold themselves accountable.
I hold myself accountable in the “Numbers” section of the Journal, but not everyone is interested in starting their own website and blog or even in writing a newsletter or blog on Substack or Medium or some other external venue.
Many, many writers (incredibly, to me) don’t even keep track of how many publishable words of fiction they write in a day, week, month or year. But those who joined (or want to join) me in the challenge may, if they want, report their numbers to me each week and I’ll pass along those numbers in a Journal post every Monday.
I’m happy to help, but the numbers they report are from their personal challenge, not mine. They aren’t piggy-backing on me or, as one writer phrased it, playing “follow the leader.” They’re challenging themselves and they just happen to know a guy with a blog who doesn’t mind sharing their numbers to enable others to follow their progress. That’s all.
Typically, a writing challenge has a purpose. The main reason to set out on a challenge usually is to do something you’ve never done before—to compare yourself today with the you that existed yesterday—and, at least in fiction writing, to enjoy the peripheral benefit of increasing your licensable inventory.
I started my own Bradbury Challenge with three purposes in mind. The first and second purposes were to help jumpstart my writing and to exercise my story-idea muscle. I want to meet characters I’ve never met before in worlds I’ve never considered before. I don’t want to grow stale as a writer.
One quick, easy way to do that is to force myself to write new short stories regularly. Hence the challenge. Invariably, some of the stories will run away and become novellas or novels. Of course, I’ve done this before. In fact, many of my stand-alone novels and some of my novel series originally sprang from a short story.
So for me, the third purpose, which was to accomplishing something I’ve never done before—writing at least one story per week for 100 weeks in a row—was only the tertiary and least-important purpose of the challenge. Accomplishing that would be nice, I guess, but it’s also a yawn, stretch, so-what kind of thing.
But if I can come up with new characters and worlds in brand-new stories, novels, and series, that’s a big deal. That is literally the breath of life for a fiction writer, and for a prolific, long-term fiction writer, it’s absolutely essential.
So I’m just saying, if you haven’t already, figure out the purpose of your challenge. Don’t challenge yourself just because I did.
But if your writing is stalled, or if you’re frozen solid with the fear of failure, the Bradbury Challenge can be a great way to jumpstart your writing. And remember that what you write isn’t important—it’s only a bit of fun—but that you write is essential. Having a challenge can help with that.
Short Story Prize Opportunity
I don’t remember whether I shared this here. It’s a $300 prize for a western short story. See the other details on the poster below. If you decide to enter, good luck.
The Writing
Most of the day yesterday I was thinking it was Sunday. I was so glad to finally realize it was Saturday instead. I started a short story, but knew I wouldn’t finish it yesterday. Now I can finish it today and not break my short little streak. (grin)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Get That To-The-Bone Feel For Your Characters” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/04/get-that-to-the-bone-feeling-for-your-characters.html. I’m sharing this mostly because it’s a slow news day. The author is a strong advocate for the myths of writing, probably because a large part of his living comes from pushing them in his nonfiction books. As always, my advice is Don’t Manipulate Your Characters anymore than you would manipulate your neighbors. Just write the story. Just write what happens and what your characters say and do.
See “Are You Giving Yourself Writing Credit?” at https://www.janefriedman.com/are-you-giving-yourself-writing-credit/. One word: spreadsheet. Writing is putting words on paper. You’d be amazed how quickly totals build if you keep track.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 980
Writing of “The Gate” (short story)
Day 1…… 2074 words. Total words to date…… 2074
Writing of Wes Crowley: Deputy US Marshal 2 (WCG9SF4)
Day 1…… 3231 words. Total words to date…… 3231
Day 2…… 2990 words. Total words to date…… 6221
Day 3…… 1805 words. Total words to date…… 8026
Day 4…… 2025 words. Total words to date…… 10051
Day 5…… 1451 words. Total words to date…… 11502
Day 6…… 1886 words. Total words to date…… 13388
Day 7…… 2002 words. Total words to date…… 15390
Day 8…… 1060 words. Total words to date…… 16450
Day 9…… 1903 words. Total words to date…… 18353
Day 10… 1143 words. Total words to date…… 19496
Day 11… 0323 words. Total words to date…… 19819
Day 12… 2445 words. Total words to date…… 22264
Day 13… 3184 words. Total words to date…… 25448
Total fiction words for April……… 14715
Total fiction words since April 1… 14715
Total fiction words for 2023………… 80903
Total nonfiction words for April… 12530
Total nonfiction words since April 1… 12530
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 74790
Total words (fiction and this blog) since April 1…… 27244 (to shadow Dean’s challenge)
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 155693
Calendar Year 2023 Novels to Date…………………… 1
Calendar Year 2023 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2023 Short Stories to Date… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 72
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 221
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark, adherence to Heinlein’s Rules, and that following the myths of fiction writing will slow your progresss as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.