The TNDJ 2025 Challenges

In Today's Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* The Novel Wrapped
* My Official Personal Goals for 2025
* The TNDJ 2025 Challenges
* The Waller Files
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quotes of the Day

"My word average per day for the [December] challenge was less than 1K but I'm still proud of myself because I managed to complete a novella and the 23K story is now being proofed/proofread. I should have it up for sale on Amazon by the first or second week in January." Magz

"I’m planning at least 1 story a day for the new year with WITD." George K

The Novel Wrapped

The novel wrapped at a little after 1 p.m. yesterday. I was 'pleased'. (And that is my personal understatement for 2024.) (grin)

Upon reaching this personal milestone, again I express my thanks to my unintentional mentor, Dean Wesley Smith. If I hadn't stumbled upon his site back in early 2014, I absolutely would not be the writer I am today. Thanks, Dean!

I know you probably don't care either way about the next two paragraphs, but I wanted to share this to show you my warped thought process:

With the way this story unfolded and then wrapped, I decided it's more of a regular Blackwell Ops novel than the first novel of a new series. And my first reader, Russ Jones, agrees with me. Russ knows my work almost as well as I do, and from a reader standpoint, he knows it better than I do.

So I'm changing the title to Blackwell Ops 33: Jack Temple: Temple's Way.

My Official Personal Goals for 2025

• 3250 wpd of published (not publishable) fiction (If I cut words they will not count unless I use them later)

• 52 short stories (The Bradbury Challenge)

• 22 novels (This one's iffy because you never know how long a novel will be)

• 1,100,000 words of published fiction (if I can maintain 3250 wpd for the year my total will be 1,186,250)

Only the 22 novels is a bit of a stretch for me. But read the disclaimer at the end of the post. This could as easily be many of you by the end of 2025.

The TNDJ 2025 Challenges

This is repeated and revised slightly from my December 18 2024 post. You might want to save this email for future reference.

Challenges help you grow as a writer. Challenges also naturally help you put more new words on the page, and when you’re putting new words on the page you learn more and become a better storyteller.

Note: Sorry, but I changed my mind about offering a free cover for the two Bradbury Challenges below. With my personal writing goals, I won’t have time.

The Bradbury Challenge

Write at least 1 short story per week. This is our longest ongoing challenge.

Every 10 successive weeks you write a short story, you get a free novel, short story collection, or nonfiction book of your choice from my personal canon. Eformat only. (You'll also be rewarded with 10 new short stories!)

NEW! The Bradbury Challenge on Steroids

Write at least 2 short stories per week. This challenge begins on January 1. I'll probably fold this into the Bradbury Challenge report every Monday. The writer's name will appear twice.

Every 10 successive weeks you get a free novel, short story collection, or nonfiction book of your choice from my personal canon. Eformat only. (You'll also be rewarded with 20 new short stories!)

The Stephen King Challenge

I expect this and the Bradbury Challenge to be the most accepted and helpful challenges for the year. Write at least 1000 words per day on average for the months of February, April, June, September, and November.

The Rules for the Stephen King Challenge (please read carefully)

1. This is open to everyone, whether paid or free subscribers. Both are eligible for the prizes (see below).

2. Email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com on or before the first day of the month (see above) to tell me you’re joining the challenge. I’ll add you to the list so I don’t forget.

3. Email me once a week during the challenge, specifically on the 10th, 17th, 24th and (in the case of November) December 1 (so every Sunday) with your word count for the previous week. (So you get two extra days for the first week.)

A Weekly Prize—If you’ve made at least 7,000 words in any week (despite what you accomplished each day), you get one nonfiction or fiction ebook free from my personal canon.

Important: Be sure to tell me in your weekly email which ebook you want and in which format. I won’t ask.

4. On the 1st of the month following a Stephen King Challenge, if you’ve written or exceeded the 30,000 word goal (again, despite what you accomplished every day or every week), you get at least one free audio course worth $50:

• You may choose either Course 1 or Course 6, OR

• You may choose any two from among Courses 2, 3, 4, and 5.

So that’s 30 days, at least 30,000 words of publishable fiction. (For February, 28,000 words)

Imagine how competing with yourself in this challenge will help your self-confidence going forward. Not to mention how much IP you will have added to your inventory. (See the Quote of the Day from Magz above.)

And I hope you’ll keep the writing going after the challenge ends.

NEW! The Run With Harvey Challenge

I’ll offer this challenge in every month (other than December) that has 31 days: January, March, May, July, and August.

The challenge will be to write 2025 words per day (average) for the whole month. Your goal will be to meet or exceed 62775 words on the month.

Prizes for the New Run With Harvey Challenges

Upon successful completion of the challenge, you may select from among the following:

• Any four of my nonfiction books on writing, or

• Any two of my audio courses (view the list at Audio Courses), or

• Any two of my video DVDs (view the list at Video DVDs, while they last), or

• Any four of my novels or novellas, or

• Any one of my omnibus collections or complete series. Those include
  

  • Blackwell Ops: Soleada Garcia (the complete 7-novel crime-thriller subseries),

  • Stern Talbot, PI Omnibus (the complete 9-volume Stern Talbot series)

  • One-Off Mysteries Omnibus (the complete 7-volume one-off mysteries series)

  • The Nick Spalding Saga (the complete 4-volume action-adventure saga)

  • The Journey Home (the complete 10-volume SF saga)

  • The Wes Crowley Saga (the complete 22-volume Wes Crowley saga)

Am I out of my mind to offer such prizes? Sure, okay, but why not?

• All book prizes will be awarded via email as ebooks in your choice of epub, mobi, or PDF files.

• All audio course prizes will be awarded via email as MP3 attachments.

• All audio DVD prizes will be mailed to your PO box or physical mailing address. (So let me know that.)

If you can think of any other challenges you’d like to see/participate in, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com and I'll consider hosting them.

The Waller Files

Yesterday I received notification from Payhip that a lucky reader just bought a copy of The Waller Files from my store there.

Very cool! Mostly because that novel won't even release officially until January 4th. Plus the buyer downloaded it for only $4 instead of the regular price of $4.99.

To get your copy of The Waller Files (a Stern Talbot mystery) or any of my other fiction or nonfiction books for a discount, visit my Payhip store at StoneThread Publishing. Or, shrug, enter and complete a challenge. (grin)

Talk with you again later.

Of Interest

A New Year… Finally

Selling Books From Your Own Website After I posted this link a few days ago here, I read the article and decided to repeat the listing. This is a GREAT article.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 1250

Writing of Blackwell Ops 33: : Jack Temple: Temple's Way

Day 1…… 4202 words. To date…… 4202
Day 2…… 3055 words. To date…… 7257
Day 3…… 3412 words. To date…… 10669
Day 4…… 3352 words. To date…… 14021
Day 5…… 1153 words. To date…… 15174
Day 6…… 1785 words. To date…… 16959
Day 7…… 4638 words. To date…… 21597
Day 8…… 3278 words. To date…… 24875
Day 9…… 3830 words. To date…… 28705
Day 10…. 3027 words. To date…… 31732
Day 11…. 4923 words. To date…… 36655 done

Fiction for December………………… 109998
Fiction for 2024………………………. 856098
Nonfiction for December…………….. 29550
Nonfiction for January……………….. 1250
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 392120
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 1250
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,248,218
2025 consumable words…………….. 1250

Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3548

2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 20 (!)
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 33
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 104
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 270
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.