Bradbury and a LOT More

November 11, 2024 by Harvey

In Today’s Journal

* Correction
* The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* Blackwell Ops 30: John Quick Returns Is Live!
* The Writing
* The Stephen King (November) Challenge
* A Note on Collaborations
* The Numbers

Correction

This is a happy correction. Between me misreading the total on the spreadsheet (the type is so tiny) and adding a few words as a result of my first reader’s catches, the novel is 102 words longer than I reported yesterday.

So instead of wrapping at 39703 words, Blackwell Ops 30: John Quick Returns, actually wrapped at 39805 words.

A hundred and two words doesn’t seem like much—it’s right at six minutes’ work—but it matters when you’re striving to reach a goal. The numbers below are adjusted to reflect those extra words.

The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting

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.

During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories:

• Vanessa V. Kilmer “Wind Up” 3746 Dystopian

• Adam Kozak “My Last Fire” 1581 General Fiction

• Harvey Stanbrough “Landing in Paris” 3704 Romance

• Dave Taylor “The Search for Johnny Able” 2,849 Sci-Fi Time Travel

Blackwell Ops 30: John Quick Returns Is Live!

The novel won’t be released anywhere else until November 30, but if you’re a Blackwell Ops fan, you can purchase Blackwell Ops-30 now at my discount store on Payhip.

Also, to commemorate the release of the 30th novel in the series, I’ve put Soleada Garcia: The Subseries on sale until November 30 for only $15. The omnibus is regularly $24.99 at Payhip and $34.99 everywhere else.

If you are not yet a fan of Blackwell Ops, there’s no better way to start than to binge that omnibus collection of seven complete novels.

I’ve also decided to leave Writing Better Fiction on sale for only $10.50 through November 30 (regularly $14 at Payhip and $14.99 everywhere else).

The Writing

For yesterday, I backed off writing novels to write the short story that appears below in The Numbers.

Since the latest novel ended on a note that led to a particular future, strictly out of curiosity I decided to explore that future in a short story. I wanted to see what happened next.

Writing it was great fun, and as always happens with a short story that includes characters from a novel, I was amazed. Plus I learned more about the characters, as I always do when I get to hang out with someone a little longer than I planned. (grin)

Today, good lord willing and the earth doesn’t suddenly disappear from beneath my feet, I’ll read the opening chapter for a possible collaboration and get started on that and-or get started on my own next novel. (See more on collaborations below.)

It’s crunch time. If I can hold the pace, I should finish December with 20 novels on the year. So right on my annual goal of 20. But if I miss it by a novel or two, you won’t hear me complaining. (grin)

The Stephen King (November) Challenge

First, I’ve discontinued the NaNo challenge (1167 wpd). Only 2 writers entered, and I received no report for either one. Besides, both writers are also in the Stephen King (1000 wpd) challenge, and the rewards are the same for both.

If you forgot to email me with your numbers for the Stephen King Challenge, you can still do that.

I won’t arbitrarily drop anyone from the challenge. Just do your best and let me know what you came up with. Any words are that many better than no words. (grin)

Of 15 writers entered in the Stephen King 1000 wpd challenge, 7 met or exceeded the 7000 word weekly goal: CR 10025, EC 13367, PD 8210, GH 7084, AK 10050, DT 12308, and WR 7275. Congrats!

Three others fell short of the goal, but they still wrote more than they otherwise would have. That by itself is a total win for those writers. So again, Congrats!

Five other writers haven’t reported any numbers for the first week yet. Again, you can still email me with those.

No matter how well (or not) you did, keep moving forward. Try to devote at least one hour per day to your writing, and then while you’re in the chair, write.

Release control and release any fear. Just write down whatever happens in the story and what the characters say and do in reaction to that. Shrug. Not a big deal.

A Note on Collaborations

If your normal life (excluding emergencies) is too busy to prioritize writing fiction, a collaboration with me is not right for you. Nothing at all wrong with that. Just a fact. Some have busier lives than others, that’s all.

Proposed ideas for a collaboration are good, but what I really need (especially if I expressed interest in your proposal) is for you to write the opening chapter (or more if it’s flowing and pulling you along) and then send it to me as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf document.

That will enable me to read it and see whether the characters will invite me in to play. If they do, we’ll collaborate.

If they don’t, you can still continue and finish the novel on your own. Obviously, the characters have already invited you in. Take advantage of that.

So far, one person has sent an opening chapter. I haven’t read it yet, but I will read it today. If the characters will have me, that will be my first collaboration. (Yay!)

So I still have one spot open for a possible collaboration. Two other writers already said they’ll be sending along an opening chapter but they haven’t done so yet.

If they do, and if one of those grabs me too, that’s all I’ll be able to handle for now in addition to my own writing.

So if you have a good story idea, sit down and write it. If you want to take a shot at collaborating with me on it, send it to me. I’ll read it and get back to you either way.

As I said, if the characters speak to me, I’ll put you in line for a collaboration. If they don’t, I won’t, but you’ll still have a novel you can finish on your own.

Just a final note—A collaboration is not an intentional instructional exercise. You might learn something about writing from my part of the collaboration, just as I will probably learn something about writing from your part.

But if I collaborate with you, that will happen because the story and characters grab me and I respect you as a pro writer. That isn’t something you say or believe of yourself. That’s something I see in your story and your writing. The best way to let me see that is to let go and just write the story.

I’m not doing this to actively teach or mentor you. I probably won’t even comment on what you send. I’ll just add my part to the novel and send it back. Any questions, email me.

Talk with you again soon.

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 1130

Writing of “Landing in Paris”

Day 1…… 3704 words. To date……. 3704 (done)

Fiction for November…………………. 31325
Fiction for 2024………………………… 868457
Nonfiction for November……………… 10270
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 344690
2024 consumable words…………….. 1037186

Average Fiction WPD (November)….. 3133

2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 16
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 98
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 255
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.

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