Ten Ways to Start 2025 with a Bang

In Today's Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Holiday Gift Subscriptions Now Available
* Ten Ways to Start 2025 with a Bang
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

"It’s hard to believe since May of this year I have completed 34 short stories, a novel and two novellas. I’ll set new year’s resolution to start sharing them with the world." Dave Taylor, in an email containing next Monday's Bradbury Challenge input

Note: For those following my numbers, I didn't write yesterday. Caught up on my sleep a little instead. Dumped my daily average a little, but back at it today.

Holiday Gift Subscriptions Now Available

Beginning today, December 17, Substack will "encourage readers to purchase gift subscriptions" on TNDJ and on my Stanbrough Writes substack.

If you know a writer who might benefit from TNDJ or a reader who might enjoy a short story every week from Stanbrough Writes, please consider purchasing a gift subscription.

Or, if you want and if you aren't already a paid subscriber, maybe treat yourself. (grin)

All subscriptions are now $5 per month or $50 per year (two free months).

Ten Ways to Start 2025 with a Bang

January 1 is always a great day to start building new habits, which in this venue means writing fiction or creative nonfiction or, for some of us, poetry.

Here are a few ideas of some ways to start building those habits. The first few are for writers of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry.

Wherever I wrote "short story" below, that also applies to creative nonfiction and poems.

Actually there are eleven tips: I numbered the first one 0 because it is basic to any of the others. So first....

0. Check and Revise or Update Your Priorities.

Just something to consider.

If you wanna be a writer, you have to put new words on the page. And if you wanna put new words on the page, you have to carve out time to do that.

Find some quiet time to sift through your list of priorities. Where you find something that is of equal or lesser importance to you than your writing, move whatever that is lower on your priority list.

When your priorities are set where you want them, try some'a these:

1. Enter the Bradbury Challenge.

Maybe you’ve been waiting for the right time. Now is the time.

Dedicate yourself to writing a new short story every week. And if you choose to do this, why not jump into the Bradbury Challenge to help with self-accountability?

If you stick with it, at the end of 2025 you'll have 52 new short stories. That's more than many writers write in a lifetime.

2. Enter the 'Bradbury Challenge on Steroids'

If there's enough interest, in addition to the Bradbury Challenge I'll introduce the Bradbury Challenge on Steroids in January, 2025. If you like this idea, leave a comment or email me.

So as not to confuse anybody, the reporting date will be the same (every Sunday by midnight Arizona time) for both challenges.

For the Bradbury Challenge on Steroids, you'll dedicate yourself to writing two or more short stories every week.

A week contains 168 hours. Chances are, 56 of those go to sleeping.

If you can steal even 4 or 6 of those remaining 112 hours, you can write two short stories per week. I know you can do it. I believe in you enough for both of us.

So give it a shot! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain as a writer.

Your big prize will be having at least 104 short stories at the end of the year.

3. Set a Publishing Goal.

(See the almost eerily coincidental Quote of the Day, which I recieved only an hour or so before I posted this.)

Here I'm talking about publishing other than on Substack (see #5 below).

Especially if you have a backlog of short stories, set a goal to publish a story every week or two weeks. Putting stories up for pre-publication orders at Amazon and/or Draft2Digital is a great way to do that.

And having a pre-published story set to release on a particular date is a great motivator to keep you writing.

I use the release date of my just-published novel as a kind of faux deadline for finishing my next novel. That's how I'm able to release a new novel every two weeks.

You can do the same thing in 1-week intervals with the stories you write for either of the Bradbury Challenges.

4. Set a Collection-Compilation-and-Publishing Goal.

I recommend publishing collections with 10 stories (or thereabouts) each. But you can publish 5-story collections also (or instead). Up to you.

Now here's something for short story writers, creative nonfiction writers, poets, AND novelists:

5. Open a Substack Account.

The account is free, and there are few ways better to test yourself than to write in a public venue in which immediate reader feedback is welcome in the form of comments. (Always say thank you. Then nod, smile, and keep writing the way you write.)

Substack is the easiest way I've seen to publish your writing, whether poetry, essays, or fiction (short or long).

If you're writing a novel, you can even serialize it on Substack, say one chapter at a time.

You can also use this as a tool to motivate you to write every day (or regularly, according to your schedule).

6. Write a 30,000 Word Story in a Month.

Yeah, this is the only suggestion that pertains strictly to novelists.

And no, of course it doesn't have to be 30,000 words. I never advocate forcing a story in any way, including imposing a pre-determined limit.

I'm just sayin', if you put that number in the back of your mind when you sit down to write, chances are your characters will pick it up and run with it.

You'll be amazed when the story wraps (probably right out of the blue) within a few thousand words of 30,000, plus or minus.

Of course, that story might also be only the first part of a character's story, the first short novel of a series or saga. If it is, run with that too.

Keep writing until the character finally crosses his arms and says, "All right. That's it." Who knows? You might write TWO 30,000 word stories in TWO months. Or even twelve in twelve months.

If something like that happens (hey, it happened to me more than once) just don't be surprised when you look up one day to find you've written a boatload more words about that one character than you thought you would.

7. Practice "Keep Coming Back."

The best way to do this is to set a daily word-count goal. If you take a break or are called away for whatever reason before you've hit your goal, come back and write a little more.

The closer you get to meeting or exceeding your goal, the better you'll feel. And whether you meet your goal or fail to success, the goal resets to zero tomorrow morning.

8. Start a Personal Streak.

No matter how many words you write per day (whether every day or only on days that you have available to write) see how long you can write a minimum number of words on each of those days without missing.

Great fun! And streaks tend to build on themselves and cause you to show up more often.

9. Start a Spreadsheet.

Or devise another way to keep track of your writing. Few things are more motivating than watching seemingly paltry numbers rapidly mount to jaw-dropping levels. And they will.

10. Take a Stab at Writing Into the Dark.

C’mon, you know you want to. (grin)

Do it strictly for fun. No pressure. Tell yourself you're writing only for yourself, only to see what happens with the characters, not for public consumption.

To start, take any character with any problem (no matter how minor), drop him or her into a setting, and start writing. What's the possible harm?

If the story takes off, run with it. Enjoy! (And when the character leads you through to The End, smile and say, "Got'cha, Critical Voice!" Then publish your story.

If any of this appeals to you, comments and emails are welcome.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

2025 Get Started Right Writing Challenge

Days of a [Kickstarter] Campaign Also a little more on challenges.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 940

Writing of The Waller Files (a Stern Talbot PI mystery)

Day 1…… 2094 words. To date…… 2094
Day 2…… 4654 words. To date…… 6748
Day 3…… 3594 words. To date…… 10342
Day 4…… 3087 words. To date…… 13429
Day 5…… 3163 words. To date…… 16592
Day 6…… 3910 words. To date…… 20502

Fiction for December………………… 58835
Fiction for 2024………………………. 804935
Nonfiction for December…………….. 18560
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 381130
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,186,065

Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3677

2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 102
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 269
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.