Dialect, Challenge Advice, Your Morning Serial
In Today's Journal
* A Little More on Dialect
* Your Morning Serial Is an Early Hit
* A Little Challenge Advice
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A Little More on Dialect
Yeah, that old thing again. If you missed my recent posts about dialect, key 'dialect' into the Search box in the sidebar at the Journal website or check the Substack TNDJ archive.
In Chapter 25 of the current novel, León Garras calls his contact to let her know he's on the island. And the moment she opened her mouth, I realized she's French.
So in that chapter, León speaks perfect English, his girlfriend speaks broken English with a fairly heavy Mexican accent, and his contact speaks less-broken English with a French accent.
I don't think that's ever happened in one of my novels before. It was, um, interesting.
I won't bore you with an excerpt here, but if you're following along in Your Morning Serial, you can watch for that. Chapter 25 is slated to appear on April 26.
Your Morning Serial Is an Early Hit
I'm pleased to report Your Morning Serial is an early hit. Subscriptions are growing every day.
On the first installment (Chapters 1–3), one reader even commented
"Bravo! I don’t know if I can do this project after all. The story is magnetic and I am a smooth worn nickel in the stubby grass. Can I hold my place until?"
A Little Challenge Advice
Once upon a time, at the beginning of my journey as a serious fictionist, I wrote at least one short story per week for 72 straight weeks (my own Bradbury Challenge). For over half that time, I was also writing novels.
Then I foolishly broke that streak, intentionally, by simply deciding not to write a short story in Week 73. The driving force behind that decision was "why bother?" After all, novel series (and then novels) sell better.
I restarted that story-a-week challenge several times and failed miserably every time. Why? Because I always had that number—72—in the back of my mind. I always set out to beat my own 'record.'
Just as if it mattered. It doesn't. That was then, and this is now.
I restarted that challenge again for myself back in September, and this time I'm writing at least one short story each week with no problem.
The difference? This time I'm back to writing them because writing is fun. Sometimes the short story is derived from a novel I'm writing (no, the words do not count twice). Most often the short story is a stand-alone.
I'm still counting the stories (and weeks), yes. But the count is no longer the driving factor. The driving factor is how much fun I have running through various worlds with my characters, living vicariously.
So a few bits of advice re writing, especially with challenges and streaks:
Never break a streak intentionally.
If you do break a streak intentionally, forget the old one and just write.
Write because writing is fun.
If you write every day (or every day that you have time), the numbers and streaks will take care of themselves.
The Writing
Welp, the novel wrapped in the early morning hours.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Quick Update on Challenge at Day 100
Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week: “Cat Lovers Versus Dog Lovers"
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 550
Writing of Blackwell Ops 41: León Garras
Day 1…… 1847 words. To date…… 1847
Day 2…… 3410 words. To date…… 5257
Day 3…… 3452 words. To date…… 8709
Day 4…… 2915 words. To date…… 11624
Day 5…… 2311 words. To date…… 13935
Day 6…… 1610 words. To date…… 15545
Day 7…… 4129 words. To date…… 19674
Day 8…… 3889 words. To date…… 23563
Day 9…… 3313 words. To date…… 26876
Day 10…. 3373 words. To date…… 30249
Day 11…. 3424 words. To date…… 33673
Day 12…. 2506 words. To date…… 36179
Day 13…. 3875 words. To date…… 40054
Day 14…. 1599 words. To date…… 41653 done
Fiction for April……………………….. 39692
Fiction for 2025………………………. 306642
Nonfiction for April………………........ 8500
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 90030
2025 consumable words…………….. 390162
Average Fiction WPD (March)……... 3308
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 8
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 17
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 112
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 287
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.
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Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.
Another great issue, Harvey. Interesting how that French-speaking character suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Thanks for featuring my Substack post in your "Of Interest" section.
The only long term streak that I broke intentionally was with DuoLingo. I was at over 1300+ days of doing language learning for at least 10 minutes a day. I was working on 12 languages that I eventually dropped to 9 after the first 6 months because I just wasn't interested in them. Why did I stop? I didn't like their politics being shoved down my throat with every lesson. So, I stopped. I still retain bits and pieces of them, but not as much as when I was doing it all the time, every day, even for just a few minutes a day. I haven't found another language program that I wanted to work with, and my focus is on different things, so I'm not that unhappy about it.