A Writing-Publishing Streak

In Today's Journal

* Blackwell Ops 35 Is Live
* A Writing-Publishing Streak
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Blackwell Ops 35 Is Live

Well, it will be live on Amazon and everywhere else ebooks are sold on February 15, 2025.

But it's live right now at my StoneThread Publishing store at a discount. Nab your copy now.

A Writing-Publishing Streak

I have one going, and you can too.

When I put BO-35 up for pre-release sale on D2D and Amazon, it became the twelfth novel in my streak of publishing a novel every two weeks.

Barring any major life rolls, I also know the release dates of at least my current novel and the two after that: BO-36, which I started writing the day before yesterday, will release on March 1. The next two novels will release on March 15 and March 29.

I hope it will continue that way at least through 2025. And with any luck, at least through 2032 and my 80th birthday. What a great birthday gift it would be to publish my 470th novel (or thereabouts) on my 80th birthday!

Of course, keeping that streak alive depends on me writing the stories, and that depends on me showing up to work every day. Sometimes, it also depends on the fact that I keep coming back through the day until I've made my word count.

Scheduling novels for publication (and pre-release preorders) is easily among the smartest things I've ever done.

D2D doesn't talk to me much, but Amazon sends me two or three reminders to upload the 'final' version of my manuscript before the release date.

Just seeing those emails in my inbox reminds me of the publishing streak and motivates me to keep writing: to keep going back to the story until it wraps. It doesn’t encourage me to write sloppily of ‘just get the words down.’ It encourages me to keep showing up.

Of course, I couldn't do any of that—writing 'fast' or publishing every two weeks—if I didn't trust myself and my characters. And for the record, I don't write 'fast.' I write about 1000 words per hour, a blazing fast 17 words per minute. Only 17 words per sixty seconds.

But f I DIDN'T trust myself

• if instead I felt compelled to take the 'safe' path of outlining and writing character sketches and plotting and planning everything out in advance, AND

• if that didn't bore me to tears and keep me from writing the novel in the first place since I would already know the story through the outline

no possible way could I continue doing what I'm doing.

Jake from Writem, in a lengthy comment exchange a month or so ago, told me outlining etc. "works" for him. And that when a novel's finally finished, he has to take a couple of weeks off to rest.

Seriously? Rest? From sitting alone in a room writing?

I think all of us were probably exhausted after a full day of taking tests back in our school days. Hours on hours of conscious, critical thinking will do that. It was hard work, and getting as many correct answers as possible was truly important.

But now you’re only writing fiction. It isn’t important at all. It’s only a bit of fun.

So when a ‘traditional’ fiction writer tells me he has to rest after finishing a novel, I immediately wonder why. Maybe to make how he spends his time seem more like ‘work’ and therefore more important?

My next thought is that if you have to rest from writing fiction, obviously whatever you're doing does NOT 'work' for you.

Maybe—just maybe—instead of 'making stuff up' you should trust your characters and just write what happens and their reactions as you run through the story with them.

Do that and you'll have nothing to rest from. It's just a boatload of great fun.

Okay, so everything depends on

• you simply believing in yourself and your characters, and

• you understanding that a story or novel is nothing more important than a few minutes' or a few hours of entertainment, and

• that your job as a writer-recorder-presenter is simply to leap into the story with your characters, race through it with them as it unfolds all around you, then

• write down whatever happens and the characters' reactions to whatever happens.

• Keep doing that until the story or novel wraps.

Don't seek perfection. Perfection doesn't exist. Or rather if it DOES exist, it exists only in the perception of the reader.

Your only job is to write and present the story to the reader.

Judging the story is the reader's job. And you don't have the time or wherewithal to judge your own stories anyway.

• For one thing, you're the worst judge of your own work. (And yes, that's true whether you think your story is great or whether you think it stinks).

• For another, you don't have time to judge. You should already be writing the next story.

Just write the characters' authentic story, the story they give you. Then schedule it for release at least two weeks out (or however long it takes you to write your next work) and start the next story.

Folks, I swear, it really is that easy. If you can bring yourself to let go of all the BS from the naysayers and just believe in yourself, you CAN do it.

If you're interested in learning how, email me with any questions at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.

The Writing

After I published Blackwell Ops 35: Seldem Dunn, I looked at the cover for a moment. Something about the guy on the cover whispered "Freddie Salomar" to me.

So at around 5 a.m. I opened my short story template, typed Freddie Salomar as the title, then started writing.

By 6:30 I finished the story. As it turned out, the story was in the Blackwell Ops world. But it featured the cover guy as a different character and Operative Nick Soldata as the POV character. Pretty neat.

I haven't heard from Nick since way back in Blackwell Ops 12: Nick Soldata. I don't remember anything about that story, but I remember Nick was very cool.

Then I took a break up at the house and came back to the Hovel at around 7 to start on the novel again.

That said, yesterday was not a great day of writing, but good enough. Too many distractions. Back at it again today. It's what I do.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards Just in case you're interested.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 1060

Writing of "Freddie Salomar"

Day 1…… 1820 words. To date…… 1820 done

Writing of Blackwell Ops 36: Temple's Dream

Day 1…… 2476 words. To date…… 2476
Day 2…… 1484 words. To date…… 3960

Fiction for January…………………… 91153
Fiction for 2025………………………. 91153
Nonfiction for January……………….. 23680
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 23680
2025 consumable words…………….. 114833

Average Fiction WPD (January)…….. 3963

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 2
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 106
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 274
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.