A Personal Challenge for You

December 3, 2024 by Harvey

In Today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* The Kris & Dean Show
* A Personal Challenge for You
* A Thundering Success!
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“Thanks for sponsoring [the November Stephen King] challenge. It really helped me get words on to the page.

“I have wasted a lot of time tinkering with my writing set up from hardware to apps etc. All of this wasted tinkering was a product of the critical mind. What gear was best?

“But as the challenge wore on, I had no time to spend on the system, only on writing. The system ended up as the simplest one (for me). Google Docs on a small chromebook. Easy to type on, not much fun for web surfing due to the small screen size. And as you predicted WITD is fun when you get into it.” George H.

Thanks, George!

The Kris & Dean Show

This is important enough that I put it in the body of the issue instead of in Of Interest.

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch are bringing forward The Kris & Dean Show. I caught the show live back when I was teaching at a lot of writers’ conferences, but I’ll sign up for this one.

Three-plus hours of Kris and Dean talking about writing and publishing FOR ONLY $50! I can’t begin to tell you what a great deal this is.

Note: When you get to Teachable, copy/paste “The Kris and Dean Show Does Die Hard” into the search block.

Check it out here!

A Personal Challenge for You

I mentioned this in yesterday’s post, but even if you read it then, read it again. Today I’ve included the prize offerings.

Issuing this challenge was literally a last-second decision yesterday. So here it is again, with the numbers adjusted to begin on December 4:

If any of you would like to take on a new challenge of writing 2325 words per day for the remainder of December (starting tomorrow, December 4), jump on it.

I recommend setting yourself a daily goal of 2500 words per day.

If you take on this challenge, your monthly goal is to reach or exceed 65,100 words for the month. Crazy, I know. (grin)

There are only two steps if you want to play:

1. Email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com to let me know you’re jumping into this challenge, and

2. Email me again on January 1st with your total word count for the month.

I’ll make it well worth your while with your choice of several major prize offerings.

Prizes

• Any four of my nonfiction books on writing, or

• Any two of my audio courses (view the list at Audio Courses), or

• Any two of my video DVDs (view the list at Video DVDs), or

• Any four of my novels or novellas, or

• Any one of my omnibus collections or complete series. Those include

  • Blackwell Ops: Soleada Garcia (the complete 7-novel crime-thriller subseries),

  • Stern Talbot, PI Omnibus (the complete 9-volume Stern Talbot series)

  • One-Off Mysteries Omnibus (the complete 7-volume one-off mysteries series)

  • The Nick Spalding Saga (the complete 4-volume action-adventure saga)

  • The Journey Home (the complete 10-volume SF saga)

  • The Wes Crowley Saga (the complete 22-volume Wes Crowley saga)

Am I out of my mind to offer such prizes? Sure, okay, but why not?

• All book prizes will be awarded via email as ebooks in your choice of epub, mobi, or PDF files.

• All audio course prizes will be awarded via email as MP3 attachments.

• All audio DVD prizes will be mailed to your PO box or physical mailing address. (So let me know that.)

I’m aware that some of you read the Journal only occasionally.

If that’s you, and if you’re reading about this late, you can still jump in if you want to. But you still have to write at least 65,100 words for the month, so get busy. (grin)

Finally, I’m gonna prod a few bears with a stick: Just so you know, VK, RS, and DT, I have a few writers in mind for this, and you’re three of them. Because I know you can at least give it a good run if you want to. And I know you want to. (grin)

A Thundering Success!

As George H alluded to in the Quote of the Day above, the November Stephen King Challenge was a thundering success for him.

It was equally successful for several other writers. Five writers exceeded the monthly goal of 30,000 words for November.

Two of those writers (one of whom was officially in the challenge and the other of whom was only shadowing it and writing on his own) wrote a novel as well as a few to several short stories.

All of them commented that they had never written that many words in a month before, and that they had a blast doing it.

Yes, well, as I keep saying, writing into the dark will have that effect on writers. (grin)

Only two writers dropped out early, both for good reasons (read “life rolls”).

Of the writers who were able to remain in the challenge, all of them did well, ranging from 11,000 to 20,509 words on the month.

Although they didn’t meet the 30,000 word goal for the month, most of them also put more new words of fiction on the page during November than they ever had before. So a total win! Congratulations!

In other words, the challenge was a complete success.

Hence, the following announcement:

In addition to the current December Run With Harvey Challenge (grin), I’ll conduct another Stephen King Challenge in every month in 2025 that is able to expand or limit its ego to 30 days.

So in 2025 I’ll sponsor (with prizes) a Stephen King Challenge in April, June, September, and November.

Of course, everyone is eligible even if you participated the November challenge and even if you’re enrolled in the Bradbury Challenge.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Episode 797: You Don’t Suck. Or do You!

50% Off Sale on ProWriting Aid Annual and Lifetime Packages Ends Tuesday, December 3, 11:59 p.m. PST I do not personally endorse or recommend this for anyone who writes into the dark, but I know some of you might want it. If so, click the link. Read what it offers, then decide. I also recommend checking the Yearly tab vs. the Lifetime (default) tab. You can also scroll down on the page for a free trial.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 1050

Writing of Blackwell Ops 32: Jack Twist

Day 1…… 3528 words. To date…… 3528
Day 2…… 3136 words. To date…… 6664
Day 3…… 4540 words. To date…… 11204

Fiction for December………………… 7676
Fiction for 2024………………………. 935597
Nonfiction for December…………….. 3160
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 365730
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,125,366

Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3838

2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 17
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 101
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 268
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.

If you are able, please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!