Bradbury and September Challenges, and a New Venture
September 9, 2024 by Harvey
In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* A Note on the September Challenge
* The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* Free Book Plus a Brand Spanking New Newsletter!
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
Seriously, no matter what kind of fiction you write, take these quotes to heart. All are courtesy of a longtime friend and excellent fictionist. Thanks, Michaele!
“If you aren’t having a blast and writing from the heart, then what’s the point?” Sarah Hogle, Romance author
“As long as you know your characters, everything else kind of takes care of itself.” Steve Hamilton, Mystery/Suspense author
“Characters, if they’re any good, will do things you don’t expect them to do. Once they start doing what they want, you’re along for the ride, hanging on for dear life, and hoping that you wake up from the fever dream and there’s a book at the end.” Patrick Carman, author of books for young readers
“Just about every page surprised the crap out of me.” Peter Heller, author of dystopian fiction
An Important Note on the September Challenge
With the September Challenge, I’m not trying to give you an opportunity to fail. But there have been some misunderstandings.
Two writers emailed yesterday to say they’d missed a day of writing so they were out of the September challenge. Another emailed something similar this morning.
You’re NOT out of the challenge just because you miss meeting your goal for a day or a week. Just keep writing and try for next week (and the overall month).
Remember, your AVERAGE is what matters. Even if you miss a day completely, keep writing. The next day the goal resets to zero.
Some days you might miss your goal, but other days you might go over. So hang in there and keep writing.
Plus, even if you miss now and then, if you hit 7000 words on the week, you still get the prize.
And even if you MISS the 7000 words on the week, stay in the challenge and go for next week’s prize. It’s all good.
As I told one of those writers, “Just keep writing every day, or trying to. Remember that your average over the week and month are what count.”
I hope I’ll be getting some good reports today. If you signed up for the challenge, be sure to email me today at harveystanbrough@gmail.com with your word count for the week, good or “bad.”
ANY QUESTIONS, please ask.
The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
To take part, the only requirement is to write at least one short story per week.
Then, if you want to share your success, submit the story title, word count, and genre to me each week for publication in the Journal on Monday. (Yes, you can also write a longer story and submit your progress each week.)
The whole point is to have fun and grow as a writer. You can join or rejoin the challenge at any time.
There’s no cost. You can even do it on your own, without reporting numbers to me or anyone else.
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories:
Vanessa V. Kilmer “Head in the Clouds” 3113 Fantasy
Adam Kozak “No Time for Fools” 1432 General Fiction
Alexander Nakul “Ermine in the Misty Land” 7542 Fantasy, Wuxia
Harvey Stanbrough “Mac and the Mentioners” 3366 SF
Dave Taylor “The Body in the Sand” 3370 Paranormal
Dave Taylor “The Halloween Carnival” 3377
Horror
Longer Works
Alexander Nakul “Look, how the roads darken” 13826 (53928 words total) Thriller, Noir
Free Book Plus a Brand Spanking New Newsletter!
Announcing Harvey’s Notes to the Earth
I’m excited about this new venture!
Once or twice each month, subscribers will receive Harvey’s Notes to the Earth.
Each issue will contain interesting notes about my fictional characters, worlds, and settings. (So, this will be good fodder for writers too.)
I’ll also announce any new short stories, novellas and novels as they are released, plus special giveaways or sales.
Of course, questions will always be welcome.
To sign up for Harvey’s Notes to the Earth AND score a free copy of Blackwell Ops 1: Jack Tilden—the novel that launched my bestselling psychological-suspense action-adventure thiller series—click https://dl.bookfunnel.com/pl7a4vjso9.
Thanks in advance for spreading the word among your friends on social media!
(And thanks to my copywriter and ad exec buddy Dan for cleaning up this announcement for me. :-)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Last Post Had Great Comments Please be sure to read this. I even left a couple of comments on his post from yesterday. For your convenience, here’s a link to all the comments on that post:
Iconic Photos From Each Decade of the 20th Century (Goes to story ideas, Your Honor.)
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 760
Writing of Blackwell Ops 28: Ariana Ramos
Day 4…… 3941 words. To date…… 9389 (Sep1)
Day 5…… 2734 words. To date…… 12123
Day 6…… 2584 words. To date…… 14707
Day 7…… 3711 words. To date…… 18418
Day 8…… 3668 words. To date…… 22086
Day 9…… 0613 words. To date…… 22699
Day 10…. 2568 words. To date…… 25267
Day 11…. 3325 words. To date…… 28592
Fiction for September…………………….. 26853
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 625582
Fiction since October 1…………………… 810641
Nonfiction for September…………………. 9820
Nonfiction for 2024………………………… 284660
2024 consumable words………………….. 792244
Average Fiction WPD (September)……… 3356
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 12
2024 Novellas to Date……………………. 0
2024 Short Stories to Date………………. 5
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 94
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………….. 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………. 242
Short story collections……………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it.
On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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Who's "thiller" on, you or Dan? I couldn't help but notice. Sorry.