A Blast from Pro Writers Writing (2019)

In Today's Journal

* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Re Advice from 52 Authors
* A Blast from Pro Writers Writing (2019)
Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

"Apple agrees to settle $95M class action lawsuit ... [which] alleges Apple's virtual assistant Siri recorded users' conversations without consent and shared them with third parties, contradicting the tech giant's privacy commitments." 1440 Daily Digest under "Quick Hits" (January 4, 2025)

This is exactly why I've never allowed any Siri or Amazon Alexa, etc. into my home. Also great fodder for a story idea.

A New Short Story

"Ant'ny Falducci" went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out.

As always, if you enjoy this strange story, please tell Everyone. If you don't, shh! (grin)

This is the first short story I wrote for the Bradbury Challenge when I re-entered it back in September 2024. All the short stories on the Stanbrough Writes Substack for the foreseeable future will be that new or newer.

Re Advice from 52 Authors

Re "Goals for the New Year: Ideas and Advice from 52 Authors," the BookBub article offers you only a glimpse at a few of those authors. But in the article, there's also a link to "Download Now."

If you don't see that link, consider subscribing to the free BookBub newsletter in order to get the "flipbook."

If you're averse for some reason to subscribing just to get the book, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com and I'll send you a copy.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of the authors talk about writing into the dark without actually using that term. They might not even know the term.

But that way of writing is widespread among more and more authors (and literally thousands of pro fiction writers) because it's the natural way to write. It's how we all wrote before we were taught to outline, plot, revise, rewrite, etc.

All of that said, I did question one statement from author Aidy Award: "It’s too easy in this business to work 12-hour days seven days a week. While I love this job, that’s not the way for me to have a healthy, happy life."

Hmm. "That's not the way" according to whom? I couldn't personally have a happier life than when I'm spending 12 to 14 hours a day or longer at my desk writing fiction, writing articles for TNDJ, interacting with other writers, etc.

You only go around once. My advice is to set your own definition of happiness and then do that in every moment that you can.

A Blast from Pro Writers Writing (2019)

Back in 2019, I facilitated another blog called ProWriters Writing. What follows is a timeless excerpt from a post for PWW:

The only way to get better at writing is to practice. Engaging in a personal challenge enhances that practice. Challenges can be an excellent way to jumpstart your writing and/or to enhance your productivity.

I got the idea for my first challenge from Ray Bradbury. He said all fiction writers should try to write one short story per week because "you can't write 52 'bad' short stories in a row."

I did, and it led to a streak of 72 short stories.

For awhile, I also tried writing a short story every day. That streak didn't last nearly as long, and the challenge itself was a failure.

However, I "failed to success," because after the challenge abruptly ended, I still had a lot more short stories than I would have had if I hadn't attempted the challenge.

And there have been other challenges in the interim.

My most recent challenge (in 2019, spurred-on by Dean Wesley Smith) was to write 10 novels in 150 days.

Each novel had to be at least 35,000 words long, and to stay on track, each had to be finished in 15 days.

That challenge "failed" too, if you can call it a failure. I didn't write 10 novels in 150 days, but when the challenge failed, I DID have four new novels in my personal canon, and was almost finished with the fifth. (Despite that good start, if I remember right, I wrote only 9 novels that year overall.)

Jumpstarting Your Writing

So if you're looking to jumpstart your writing or your productivity, give challenges a look.

If you're fortunate, you might even be able to entice a writer friend or two to jump into the challenge with you. A little competition never hurt anyone. (grin)

Also, if you're interested in writing challenges or productivity, you might look into the 750 Words website.

If you're interested in learning what really goes on time-wise when you sit down to write, it will be good for that too.

You all know I'm a big believer in keeping track of numbers because it helps in my productivity. This innovative little site measures all sorts of stuff. It even keeps track of all the time you are NOT writing when you think you're writing. (grin)

But I mentioned writing challenges specifically because this site encourages you to write 750 words.

That's important for several reasons. That number of words is about three pages, about an hour of work and — in some fast-paced genres — about one scene (or chapter). How cool is that?

And for those of you who are trying to maintain 1000 words per day average: If you're missing your goal regularly, again, maybe take a look at the 750 Words website.

Talk with you again later.

Of Interest

Crafting a Killer Author Bio Take this with a grain of salt.

Inspiring Quotes For Indie Authors, From Indie Authors

How to Start Writing a Book This will appeal to some, not to others. You already know what I recommend re writing fiction.

100-year-old predictions about 2025 Story ideas abound.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 940

Writing of Blackwell Ops 34: Soloman Payne

Day 1…… 2005 words. To date…… 2005
Day 2…… 2992 words. To date…… 4997
Day 3…… 3998 words. To date…… 8995

Fiction for January…………………… 8995
Fiction for 2025………………………. 8995
Nonfiction for January……………….. 4110
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 4110
2025 consumable words…………….. 13105

Average Fiction WPD (January)……. 2998

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 0
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………….... 104
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 270
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.