Bradbury, and Cutting Tomatoes
In Today's Journal
* The Bradbury Challenge
* Cutting Tomatoes
* My Hungarian Friend
* Just That Quickly
* The Writing
* 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:
Balázs Jámbor "AI_WAR" 5000 general fiction
Vanessa V. Kilmer "Frayed Ends" 3197 Cozy Mystery
Vanessa V. Kilmer "Kissy Doll" 3068 Horror
Christopher Ridge "Tentacles of Terror" Horror 2157
Harvey Stanbrough "Racing to the Corner" 1943 Fantasy
Dave Taylor "The Incident at Tyler's Barn” 3590 paranormal
Congratulations to all of these writers!
Cutting Tomatoes
Jude, a writer, asked,
"How do you balance taking your time with creating unnecessary bulk? I worry sometimes that by describing, I dunno, somebody cutting a tomato, I’m not saying anything or advancing the story?"
Thanks for the question. First, all of us, including I, have worried about such things until we come to know better.
The key question back at you is "Unnecessary to whom?" What one reader thinks of as excessive, another won't. That's the whole key.
I've written stories in which I personally (as a reader) thought there was "too much" or "too little" of something. The key for me is to always write whatever the POV character notices. He, not I, am the one who's living the story.
To put it another way, if your POV character is cutting a tomato at present, how do you know it doesn't advance the story or won't be important somewhere later in the story?
One thing is certain:
If you allow yourself to intrude on the characters' story and add or omit something because you think (conscious mind) it should be there or doesn't fit, you will have altered the characters' authentic story going forward (similar to The Butterfly Effect).
My Hungarian Friend
and writer Balázs Jambor had an interesting idea for a personal challenge:
"I have a week off from work and decided to do a personal challenge of writing a short story a day for ten days. Exciting! So, the Stephen King challenge will be done! I already am at 840 words / day for March."
I love that enthusiasm!
Balázs also asked whether he can report those stories to the Bradbury Challenge, and of course I said yes. So you'll see at least some of those results in next week's Bradbury Challenge report.
If you have an idea for a personal challenge for yourself, feel free to email me to share it. I'll report it in TNDJ.
Spread the wealth. You never know how many other writers might find your challenge intriguing and pick it up and run with it themselves.
And especially if you aren't currently writing or aren't currently writing 'enough' per your definition of the term, be sure to see "On Believing in Yourself" in tomorrow's TNDJ.
It isn't the same ol', same ol'.
Just That Quickly
The current indie publishing world
is truly rife with opportunity for fiction writers. Of course, you have to take advantage of it.
My first reader got back to me early yesterday morning with some excellent 'catches' and suggestions on Blackwell Ops 39: More Paul Stone.
I made the changes I agreed with, and now the novel is up on Amazon and Draft2Digital for pre-release sales at $5.99. It will release on April 12 (two weeks after BO-38 releases).
That extends my streak of writing and publishing a novel every two weeks to 16 novels in 32 weeks. Not too shabby.
But I'm only the example.
You can do the same or better. No pressure. Just believe in yourself and type one word at a time.
Anyway, this is the same novel from which I took excerpts for use as examples for three recent TNDJ posts on "Sequence in Description."
And the novel is available for download NOW at my Payhip discount store for only $5. Grab your copy today.
And don't forget...
If you need an excellent example of how to handle switches in POV, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com with Example in the subject line to receive the prologue and Chapter 1 of BO-10: Jeremy Stiles. It's free.
The Writing
Yesterday at around 2:30 p.m. I still hadn't started the new novel. Then I realized I hadn't written my weekly story for Bradbury yet either.
So I opened my short story template, wrote "Racing to the Corner" for a title, and started writing. Just flat-out, into the dark.
Maybe the fastest writing I've ever done: just under 2000 words in an hour and a half. Great fun!
Just for kicks, you'll be able to see that short story next Friday on the Stanbrough Writes substack. (You can subscribe here. It's free.)
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 800
Writing of "Racing to the Corner"
Day 1…… 1998 words. To date…… 1998 done
Writing of Blackwell Ops 40: John Staple
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date…… XXXXX
Fiction for March…………………….. 47772
Fiction for 2025………………………. 233603
Nonfiction for March……………........ 15940
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 69870
2025 consumable words…………….. 296963
Average Fiction WPD (March)……... 2986
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 6
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 110
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 281
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!
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.
Go Balazs! Very inspiring.
Yay! Balazs! We are rooting for you!