In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Special Sale!
* Today, and the Challenges
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” Paulo Coelho, from “The Alchemist”
A New Short Story
“Ariana’s Determination” went live yesterday on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out.
If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin)
SPECIAL SALE!
If you enjoy thrilling action tales of professional assassins with a healthy dose of psychological suspense and even romance, you’ll love the rollercoaster ride of the Blackwell Ops world.
For a limited time, I’m putting Soleada Garcia: The Subseries on sale for only $8.99!
That’s only $1.28 per novel. The subseries is regularly $29.99.
The subseries contains SEVEN complete novels in one omnibus collection in .pdf, .epub, and .mobi (you get all three).
It includes the complete story of Soleada Garcia and also features Blackwell Ops operative Charles Claymore “Charlie” Task.
For readers, this is a ton of entertainment.
For fiction writers, it’s a master-level class on how to write fiction.
Don’t miss this opportunity. Download your copy of Soleada Garcia: The Subseries at StoneThread Publishing today!
This announcement is for everyone. Please share it with your friends in person and on social media.
Today, and the Challenges
I’ll get back to reading an excellent novelette by one of my mentoring students. I was denied the pleasure of finishing it yesterday by an untimely but necessary optometry appointment.
After yesterday’s post, two more writers have accepted the 1000 wpd challenge that will begin on September 1.
In a reply to one of them this morning, I reminded her there’s no pressure involved. Look at it as an escape from everything else and a chance to have fun for an hour a day or so.
As Dean Wesley Smith once said, writing fiction should be as easy as writing an email.
When you write for either the 1000-wpd or 2250-wpd challenge, you don’t have to worry at all about whether the “story” is any good. You’re only putting words on a page and stopping where you stop.
So just let your creative subconscious play for an hour or so, and then go do something else until the goal resets tomorrow. A few facts—
- Both challenges are free but you must be a paid subscriber to enter.
- Both challenges begin on September 1.
- You only report your figures to me once a week, and you pick up a few prizes along the way.
- To enter, simply email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
Talk with you again soon.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 430
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date…… XXXXX
Fiction for August…………………….….… 38647
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 545694
Fiction since October 1………………… 770697
Nonfiction for August……………………… 19530
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 266540
2024 consumable words………………… 734180
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 12
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 94
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 241
Short story collections…………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it.
On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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