Copyediting 'Certificate' Program?
In Today's Journal
* My Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Bradbury Reminder
* Also Remember the 2025 Challenges
* WDU Copyediting Certificate Program
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
My Quote of the Day
"What we will do or want to do or think about doing or might do doesn't matter in the slightest. What matters is what we decide to do, and then do. That is our life. All the rest is only contemplation." HS
A New Short Story
"Mac and the Mentioners" went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. Hint: No, 'the Mentioners' is not a garage band.
As always, if you enjoy this strange SF story, please tell Everyone. If you don't, shh! (grin)
Bradbury Reminder
Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get your Bradbury Challenge story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday. (Which reminds me, I still have to write my own entry for this week.)
Remember, if you finish a story earlier in the week, you can send the info to me early too. It never hurts to avoid pushing the deadline.
Also Remember the 2025 Challenges
The Run with Harvey Challenge pretty much fizzled for January, at least as far as I know. No worries.
The February Stephen King Challenge
Remember, the February Stephen King Challenge is coming up. Please click here for details, rules, and prizes.
I mention this because Right Now would be a great time for you to be ramping up for this 1000 words per day challenge.
But if you want in, you have to email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com on or before February 1 to participate.
NEW!
I'll continue to offer Run with Harvey Challenge but as an open challenge, meaning you can participate in any month. The challenge is to write 2025 words per day (average) for whatever month you're entered.
Again, be sure to let me know via email on or before the first day of the month so I can add you to the list.
These challenges are great opportunities to spark or increase your fiction writing. They're free to enter, and you stand to gain some great prizes.
You're supposed to be writing fiction anyway, right? So jump in already. Take a chance on yourself.
WDU Copyediting ‘Certificate’ Program
Writer's Digest University is offering a copyediting certificate program. I won’t help them scam you by providing a link.
The program spans ten sessions and twelve weeks and culminates with a two-week period during which you are offered the chance to take a final exam and receive a certificate.
The fee is $799.99.
Copyediting is a very good thing for any fiction writer to learn. And the current common wisdom that says a fiction writer can't copyedit his or her own work is BS.
So if learning how to copyedit appeals to you, read on....
Not only can you copyedit your own work, but the work will be better for it.
Why? Because you already know the work inside and out. You know the characters and the story. You know the nuances and intentions buried in the dialogue and narrative.
But I hate seeing people get ripped off.
That's why I offer a pay-as-you-go mentoring program for a price you and I agree on in advance (never more than you can comfortably afford).
That's also why I offer my mentoring program one month at a time. So you can get the maximum value for your money. With my program, you pay when you need mentoring, and when you don't need it, you don't pay.
Note: Long-time donors and paid subscribers are already entered in a general mentoring program. They can ask me anything at any time.
Now I'm thinking about putting together a copyediting course.
If there's enough interest, I'll do that. And it will cost a great deal less than the WDU course. Probably no more than $150 or $200.
My course will also include e-copies of Punctuation for Writers, Writing Realistic Dialogue, and Writing Better Fiction. (If you already have those three books, I will discount the copyediting course for you.)
My course will cover most of what the WDU course covers—for example, I won't talk about "Editing the News"—and it will be more in-depth and attuned to your own work.
This will basically be a mentorship, but for a set fee. So we will also proceed according to your pace, not some predetermined schedule.
Of course, you won't receive a "certificate" from my course.
But even if you branch out later to offer copyediting services for other writers, chances are you'll do that via email. They won't ask for or see any certificates that might be hanging on your wall. Nor will they care.
Copyediting is a conscious-mind effort. It's the next step after cycling (a function of the creative subconscious).
I've been writing for so long and I've written and copyedited so much that today I am able to copyedit my own work while cycling through it in the creative subconscious.
So if learning to copyedit your own work is something that interests you, please leave a comment or email me.
From what I've seen from a LOT of 'official' copyeditors out there, you'll save a half-ton of money AND come out with a much better end result.
The Writing
Yesterday I was about to wrap up the day at around 3:30.
About 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through a chapter and leading into a 'hit' chapter, I stopped and did the math on the numbers for the day.
But as I took off my glasses, leaned in, and looked at the tiny word count total in the bottom left corner of the screen on MS Word, I realized I could cross over 20,000 words in the novel if I wrote for only another quarter-hour.
So I got up, stretched, and walked to the end of the Hovel and back. Then I sat down and wrote for another 15 minutes or so, finishing the chapter.
That brought the novel to a little over 20000 words. It also gave me the best day of writing so far with over 4500 words.
'Keep Coming Back' really works. Who knew? (grin)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Is it Possible to Make a Good Living Writing Fiction?
My Story A Day Challenge You want to read this.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 1000
Writing of Blackwell Ops 35: Seldem Dunn
Day 1…… 3796 words. To date…… 3796
Day 2…… 3389 words. To date…… 7185
Day 3…… 4085 words. To date…… 11270
Day 4…… 4234 words. To date…… 15504
Day 5…… 4543 words. To date…… 20047
Fiction for January…………………… 68940
Fiction for 2025………………………. 68940
Nonfiction for January……………….. 18540
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 18540
2025 consumable words…………….. 87480
Average Fiction WPD (January)……. 4055
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 1
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 105
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 274
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.
I'm still in the slow ramp up on my personal challenge. I knew January and February were going to be/will be rough (and it has been! I think I have strep or something like it currently!) But, I've been getting a few words in (either fiction or non-fic or both) each day, so not up to par, but I still have until End of March to make my challenge number for the first quarter, as I'm only counting my yearly total for the challenge, and the days/weeks/months/quarters as way markers for me. And even in the end on Dec 31st, if I've failed to meet the full total, I will still have been writing more than last year! And I am loving the black tracker that I got from Harvey, as it's really helping me to SEE the changes and that is very helpful for game/challenges centered me. In fact as of last night (I haven't written today) I'm at: 9709 out of 33,333 goal words for January, despite all the disturbances including PT/SDTraining/Chiro taking up 4 days a week and leaving me mentally exhausted. So, go me!