In Today’s Journal
* My Quote of the Day
* Subscription Drive: An Offer
* Stephen King Challenge
* A New Short Story
* Bradbury Reminder
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
My Quote of the Day
“This isn’t a museum. Feel free to browse, but all this crap’s for sale.” Harvey
Subscription Drive: An Offer
Actually, the tongue-in-cheek quote above is only partly true.
TNDJ is part museum with a little ‘hold my beer and watch this’ thrown in for kicks. But mostly it’s a valuable resource for fiction writers. Read on.
Admittedly, coming up with and writing topics for TNDJ on writing and publishing is a labor of love. All are welcome.
By all means, hang out for awhile and sample TNDJ. But please don’t take for granted what might seem like altruism.
As a fiction writer, I’m an open book. You can see day by day what I do as a writer. It’s there in the numbers near the end of every post. The fiction numbers are a little misleading though.
Although I started writing in earnest in 2014, I didn’t write fiction at all for over 2 years of that timespan. So I’ve actually achieved all of that in only 8 years: 108 novels, 10 novellas, and over 270 short stories, comprising several million words.
Yet the only ‘work’ I do is writing posts for this Journal.
TNDJ is my attempt to
- share Heinlein’s Rules,
- share the Zen-like non-process of writing into the dark, and
- share tried-and-true fiction writing techniques, all in order to
- help cut the learning curve for other fiction writers.
My sincere thanks to those of you who are already regular donors or paid subscribers. Your donations and subscriptions literally put food on my table and enable me to buy a new (used) computer when necessary.
Most importantly, they provide the necessary catalyst for me to continue publishing TNDJ.
My thanks also to those of you who’ve been with me since the beginning, and to those of you who have left dozens of comments or sent me hundreds of emails over the years.
All of you have helped make TNDJ the valuable resource it is today.
If you are not yet a regular donor or paid subscriber—AND IF YOU ARE ABLE (please don’t take food off your table to put it on mine)—please consider upgrading your free subscription to paid.
It’s only $5 per month or $60 per year.
Respectively, that’s way below the cost of a burger and fries or the rough equivalent of two trips to Sonic or three large pizzas.
A Limited-Time Offer
For a limited time, any new or present paid subscriber or any free subscriber who upgrades to a paid subscription will receive a coupon code to get Writing Better Fiction free of charge (a $14 value) from my online store.
From the description, “Writing Better Fiction is an ambitious, comprehensive guide to writing any form from short stories to novellas to novels and novel series and in any genre. This is the only book you need on the craft of writing fiction.” Ernest Hemingway…
Uh, no, Papa did not write that blurb. I wrote it. But who knows more about Writing Better Fiction than the guy who wrote it, right?
Also, if you email me and let me know which novel you’d like, I’ll personally send you a free novel. You can browse my novels in a non-hostile environment at StoneThread Publishing.
Perhaps best of all, being a regular donor or paid subscriber enters you into a limited mentorship directly with me.
Ask me anything about writing or publishing via email at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. I will respond as fully as I can.
I’ll repeat this offer a couple of times per year. Or maybe once a quarter. Shrug. I dunno.
Stephen King Challenge
I’ve decided to sponsor the Stephen King Challenge every month, beginning today.
Basically, you strive to write at least 1,000 words per day. (I recommend setting a daily word count goal of 1100 wpd or higher, but that’s up to you.)
I’ll write a longer, Revised TNDJ 2025 Challenge post about this tomorrow, complete with revised (improved) prizes.
A New Short Story
“The Anatomy of a Hit” (an action-adventure story) went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.
This story is also a great sampler for my Blackwell Ops novel series.
If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else.
Bradbury Reminder
Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get your Bradbury Challenge story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.
The Writing
Two days ago I took the day off (willingly) and then yesterday I had a poor day of writing, mostly because the guy who’s running electricity to the Hovel showed up and we worked on that. See? Even I have excuses sometimes. (grin) Onward and upward.
Of Interest
Book Marketing Tips & Author Branding Advice “Penny C. Sansevieri is a powerhouse in the publishing industry.” You might check this out for some great tips on marketing.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 840
Writing of Blackwell Ops 38: Paul Stone
Day 1…… 4071 words. To date…… 4071
Day 2…… 2711 words. To date…… 6782
Day 3…… 3434 words. To date…… 10216
Day 4…… 4185 words. To date…… 14401
Day 5…… 4149 words. To date…… 18550
Day 6…… 4104 words. To date…… 22654
Day 7…… 2010 words. To date…… 24664
Fiction for February………………….. 64476
Fiction for 2025………………………. 185831
Nonfiction for March………………. 840
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 53930
2025 consumable words…………….. 234091
Average Fiction WPD (February)…….. 2375
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 4
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 9
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 108
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 279
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.