Stephen L. Thompson's Blog, page 58

400,000 words!

Sometime in 2004, I had the idea of keeping track of how many words I write using the word count feature.  If I kept track of what I did in 2004, I've lost that paperwork and I don't know how many thousands of words I wrote before then, but I do have records from 2005.  As such, I'm pleased to announce that as of the morning of April 2, 2012, I have written (at least) a total of 400,123 words.  That's about four novels.  And given that I only have half a novel written, that's a lot of short s...

30 Stories in 30 Days #1 – "Unforgettable"

Unforgettable

 Closing her menu, April asked, "So, Barbara said you worked in IT.  What exactly do you do?"

Matt shrugged.  "The joke in the department is we deal with monkeys and idiots."

April raised an eyebrow.

Matt chuckled and closed his menu.  "It seems like ninety percent of the problems we deal with in our company fall into two categories.  The first results from people who have no clue what they are doing and as such are terrified to do anything.  These are the people – usually the...

Stephen L. Thompson's March 2012 Newsletter

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2012.

* * *

My publication news for the past month:

Publication of my story "A Clear View" on my Ficly account.

Acceptance of my story "Have to Learn the Hard Way" by AntipodeanSF to be published in May.

* * *

This month I wrote 3,322 words, giving me a yearly total so far of 18,642.  In order to reach my goal of 80,000 words this year, I needed to write – on average – 6,667 words a month, so I was off this month.  Part of that is because I ...

Upcoming story madness

Four years ago, I had the crazy idea of trying to see if I could write thirty stories in thirty days.  What's even crazier, is that I set out to write thirty stories in thirty days and I succeeded.  What's even crazier than that is that I've tried every year since.  For the first three years, I succeeded in writing thirty stories, but last year – while in the process of moving – I only managed to write nineteen.  So why do I bring this up?  Well, this Sunday (and it's not an April Fool's...

Self-promotion palooza

I am going to be busy in April.  First off, if everything goes as planned – and so far, so good – about the middle of the month will be when my second story collection, The All-You-Can-Read Buffet, will be out.  I still need to double check the formatting and page numbers and I want to give it another polish, but my hope is to upload it to Createspace by the 31st.  I'll get a proof copy, and if everything looks good, I'll finalize it and it will go on sale.

While that is big news, most of the ...

100 days of writing

I have written every day since December 1st!  That means that – as of my writing a few sentences shortly after midnight – today marks the 100th day straight that I've written.  In that time, I've written a total of 22,627 words.  Not bad.  And I'll most likely write a few hundred more before the end of the day.  I almost want to say "On to 200," but next month I'll be doing my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge, and while I'll probably write every day in April, I'll most likely need to take a...

QR Code Test

I'm in the process of putting the final touches on my second story collect, The All-You-Can-Read Buffet.  One minor bit, is in the back of the book I include my website and a QR code.  I didn't put much thought into, just found a QR generator, plugged in my website, and pasted the image into my manuscript.  But then I was on Empire Avenue and saw a mission from (e)SKING sending people to his blog "9 Ways to Screw Up QR Codes at Trade Shows." After reading his list I made a change to the way I...

Stephen L. Thompson's February 2012 Newsletter

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2012.

My publication news for the past month:

Publication of my story "Agent 202" on my Ficly account.

* * *

This month I wrote 7,782 words, giving me a yearly total so far of 15,320.  In order to reach my goal of 80,000 words this year, I needed to write – on average – 6,667 words a month, so I'm well on my way to reaching my goal.

As I mentioned in December, I want to write every day, but I will give myself twenty free days where I...

Download my story for free!

This weekend only, Kindle users can download my short, scifi story "Enigma" for free!  So check it out, you've got nothing to lose.

Grammar, who needs it?

If you're like me, you usually ignore the ads on the side of the screen when you're on Facebook.  But one caught my eye today, and then I saw a second good one.  What I first saw was the headline, "Learn he is not roman." My first thought was, "Are you from Rome?" "No." "You're not Roman."   But then I read the rest of the ad.  And then I read two ads down.  The Doctor Who/Peanuts one is okay.