Bradbury, and Anti-Promotion

In Today's Journal

* The Bradbury Challenge
* Anti-Promotion
* A Reminder (or If You're New Here)
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

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 "Finding My First Horse" 2100 YA contemporary.

• Loyd Jenkins “The Man Who Delivers” 1950 Space Western

• Vanessa V. Kilmer "Crossroads" 3024 Apocalyptic

• Christopher Ridge "Whispers in the Walls" 1750 thriller

• Dave Taylor "The Biker’s Dream” 5,326 paranormal

• Dave Taylor " It Started with a Glance” 1,826 general fiction

Congratulations to these writers.

Anti-Promotion

If you missed it yesterday, in Advanced Magic Bakery… Chapter Eight Dean Wesley Smith talked about four areas writer-publishers need to fix in order to improve sales.

He calls those Anti-Promotion Problems. And he's absolutely right. Here are the four areas:

• Author Name and Brand

• Art That Fits Genre

• Your Sales Copy Sucks

• Your Openings and Endings Do Not Do Their Jobs

If you're a fiction writer, you need to read that post. Even if you're mired in the myths.

The post is not about writing. It's about getting readers to pick up your work. Love him or hate him, Dean always tells writers the truth about writing and selling fiction, and he absolutely nails this.

To fix that third problem (sales copy), Dean didn't mention his own book, so I will. I've found it invaluable.

If you want a step-by-step guide to writing great sales copy, complete with examples, buy a paperback copy of Dean's How to Write Fiction Sales Copy. Again, I recommend buying the paper edition. Mine is dogeared.

A Reminder (or If You're New Here)

I've been writing this Journal in one form or another since 2014. In that time, I've covered a lot of ground.

I hope to still be writing TNDJ and fiction for years to come. But I've noticed I'm slowing down, as all machines eventually do. As Mardy Grothe and others pointed out so well yesterday in his Quotes of the Week, tomorrow is never assured.

I'm a people person. I love sharing information that might help cut someone else's learning curve. For no particular reason at all, I want to see you succeed as a fiction writer. That's why I give away so much stuff. But it will only help you if you accept it.

You can download several years' worth (2020 through 2024) of archives—free and in searchable, printable PDF format—at the Journal website. No strings. I won't even know you've been there.

While you're at the site, I recommend clicking the Gifts tab too, and On Writing Fiction. You'll find a wealth of information there.

It's fine. Maybe you just dislike others advising you, or maybe you're overloaded with false pride, or maybe you just aren't ready yet.

Frankly, you won't always like or "agree with" what you read in the archives or in those other offerings, but [shrug] a fact is a fact even when others don't "agree."

Likewise, some of what you read in the Journal (TNDJ) and in my other offerings probably will make sweat beads break out on your forehead. If that happens, I suggest you check in with yourself, figure out what that fear's really all about, and deal with it.

All of that said, by all means you do you.

Everything I offer is valid instruction with no fluff, no myths that will slow or bog-down or stop your writing, and no ridiculous regurgitation of the 'rules' we've all heard since we were in first grade.

If you'd like to follow my own journey from my very late beginning in 2014, the archives from 2014 through 2019 are available too. If you want those, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.

If you're mired in the myths, something you read in the archives or in those other offerings might help pull you out. But no matter how you write, you'll also find literally dozens of craft topics that will help you leap ahead in skill.

All in searchable, printable PDF format. All free. Take advantage of it. I only wish all this had been available back in 2014.

For whatever it's worth...

Recently I was accused by a writer of "adhering to one mentor," by which he meant Dean Wesley Smith. The assertion is ridiculous.

The writer flung that accusation because I refused to support a bestselling fiction author whose name I still will not mention publicly because I don't want to support him or direct you to his nonfiction works.

Why? Because he uses his fame to promote the myths in his nonfiction works. Whereby he mires MORE writers in the myths and thereby builds an automatic audience for his next nonfiction book. It's all greed, folks.

I guess my accuser never noticed all my mentions of Hemingway and King and Bradbury and Nemerov and Frost and Yeats and Sassoon and Block and Leonard and Cain and Chandler et al ad nauseam and how much I've learned from them.

I only talk about DWS so often because he's the one who first showed me Heinlein's Rules and WITD (neither of which, by his own admission, he came up with on his own) and because he's still doing his best to teach writers to be confident in themselves. That's the main thing he taught me.

In fact, DWS is the reason I first took on the task of being the "other" fiction writer who tries to teach other writers to be confident in themselves.

So sue me.

Or be nice and don't. Either way, how you choose to write is up to you, yes? It isn't like I'm gonna stop by and check.

Of Interest

Advanced Magic Bakery… Chapter Nine Easy Promotion That Makes Money.

An Alternative to the Publishing Rat Race If you WITD, I recommend being an artisan author AND rapid release. If you don't, I do not recommend rapid release. If you outline and try rapid release, your work will become formulaic.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 1020

Writing of “On Point in Nicaragua”

Day 1…… 4123 words. To date…… 4123 done

Writing of Blackwell Ops 46: Sam Granger | Still on the Ghost Trail

Day 1…… 1814 words. To date…… 1814
Day 2…… 2645 words. To date…… 4459
Day 3…… 1507 words. To date…… 5966
Day 4…… 1664 words. To date…… 7630
Day 5…… 1283 words. To date…… 8913
Day 6…… 3126 words. To date…… 12039

Fiction for June………………………. 36075
Fiction for 2025………………………. 499527
Nonfiction for June………………....... 18150
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 144300
2025 consumable words…………….. 637317

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

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!