Bradbury, and a Glitch
In Today's Journal
* Quote of the Day
* The Bradbury Challenge
* Recommendation
* A Glitch
* The Anthology Is Shaping Up
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
"In case you were wondering what these titles are all about, I recently read a book by a well known flash fiction writer [in] which she includes a few exercises. One exercise caught my attention where she challenges you to write a terrible story. Break rules, screw up setting, write out of the regular format or whatever comes to mind.
"This led me to experimental fiction. Tons of fun. I love stories that go against the grain. I also learned , it's really hard to write a terrible story especially when we write to entertain ourselves first which will automatically come naturally when we write as long as we don't put a lot of thought into it." Christopher Ridge
The Bradbury Challenge
The whole point of the Challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer. There is no cost. The only requirement is to write at least one short story per week. Feel free to jump in at any time.
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories:
Erin Donoho "Saturday Night at the Pizzeria," 7000 action-adventure suspense
Loyd Jenkins “The Danger in the Forest” 2600 Low Fantasy
Vanessa V. Kilmer "Levi is Blue" 3284 Speculative
Christopher Ridge "This is another terrible story" 1521 experimental
Dave Taylor "You Can’t Get There from Here " 2,811 Paranormal
Congratulations to these writers.
Recommendation
If you are a science fiction or science fantasy writer, I urge you to sign up for 1440's Science & Technology newsletter.
It's free, and it arrives once a week. You can sign up here.
A Glitch
As I was reading Chapter 15 of The Ark yesterday morning over at Your Morning Serial, I noticed a major glitch.
The whole novel is written from the first-person POV of the POV character, yet the third paragraph below the break (indicated by an asterisk on a line by itself) reads
A moment later, his personal comm unit vibrated slightly against his left mastoid bone. A voice said, “This is Lisa.”
In other words, for some reason I slipped into third-person POV in that paragraph.
Doing that will jerk the reader out of the story for an instant. It even jerked me out of the story, and I'm the guy who wrote it. The passage should have read
A moment later, my personal comm unit vibrated slightly against my left mastoid bone. A voice said, “This is Lisa.”
It was a major glitch but fortunately it lasted for only a second and then I was back into the first-person POV.
I've also caught a few places where I dropped the "ed" off what should have been a past-tense word (e.g., "watch" vs. "watched").
I won't correct any of those at this late date. I mention this only as a lesson. Usually a good first reader will catch glitches like that, so be sure to use a good first reader.
Or as an alternative, read your work aloud.
The Anthology Is Shaping Up
Over the next few days I should receive one more final manuscript, plus bios from a couple of writers. Then I can put this thing together.
When the smoke clears, we'll have an anthology of 20 short stories from 13 writers ranging prolific to occasional writers, from professionals to amateurs, and from bestsellers to relative unknowns. All the stories are good.
Congratulations to all those writers who believed in themselves enough to enter the contest! I'm a very lucky guy. (grin)
The Writing
If you're wondering, the writing's going slowly. As a writer friend says, "I Have Excuses." (grin)
Part of my excuses is the hotter than usual summer we're having. The Hovel has 3.5' thick walls, but the ceiling, not so much. So my portable AC unit only cools to about 84 degrees by around 10 a.m. It's kind'a like a sauna, only without the water in the air. Which is fine. My neighbors don't wanna see me in a towel anyway.
I have a fan too, so it's at least bearable up to a point, but it isn't conducive to writing. My characters don't care for the heat. I might have to find a new switch for my portable swamp cooler and drag it back over here and set it up. Sigh.
And then the opening of the current novel doesn't feel quite right and I haven't been able to put my head on Why yet. It will come. I might just pitch it and start from scratch.
And then I'm also reading a lot of stuff lately: the contest entries, and my own The Ark installments every day, and in the early evening, Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister. (Great read, by the way. I love Chandler's voice.)
So for now I'm leaning on Papa Hemingway's famous quote from A Moveable Feast: “You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
Of Interest
Repeat: Why I Dropped WordPress for PayHip Very interesting and informative.
The Themes and Motifs that Captivated Hitchcock Things every fiction writer should be aware of.
Why the Yellowstone Series is So Successful
Book Clubs, Dissecting Reads, and Deceiving Reader in Just The Right Way
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 900
Writing of Blackwell Ops 46: Sam Granger | Still on the Ghost Trail
Day 1…… 1814 words. To date…… 1814
Fiction for June………………………. 25849
Fiction for 2025………………………. 489301
Nonfiction for June………………....... 13390
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 139540
2025 consumable words…………….. 622331
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 12
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 27
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 116
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 297
Short story collections……………………. 29
If you’re new to TNDJ, you might want to check out these links:
Oh, and here’s My Bio. It’s always a good idea to vet the expertise of people who are giving you advice.
Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.
Hmm... I'll give that some thought. I used to let novelists into the Bradbury Challenge, but the Stephen King Challenge kind of took the need for that away. For that one you only write at least 1000 words per day. That should fall right into your wheelhouse for writing a novel.
I remember the hot Arizona weather when I was stationed at Luke Air Force base back in the late 1970s. Every day a small group of us would run two miles at lunch and I would lose five pounds of water weight. And when I started running, I had to keep running because the heat coming through the bottom of my sneakers was almost unbearable.
My wife and I rented a small farmhouse on the back of a dairy farm and our only source of cooling was a swamp cooler. It did a great job as long as the humidity was low.
Instead of a towel when it gets too hot, maybe you could wear a speedo and say you're writing at "pulp speedo." LOL
Keep up the good stuff you do for other writers. Thank you, Harvey. :-)