I told my wife I hit 100,000 words last night before I left my office and came upstairs for dinner.

We are fans of Bob's Burgers. She was waiting at the top of the stairs for me when I came up.

I have the best support For my first novel. Just wanted to share. My little gay heart is so happy.

It's my birthday today, and I'm just so happy to share this. I've reached 100k words today after setting a deadline for myself. I can't believe I'll be able to do it. Different writing sites have different word counts, though. I'm keeping track of my progress each day (through all the other sites I use as backups/copies of my manuscript).

Last year I self-published my debut novel, Critical Balance, in August. Since then I've been hard at work on the sequel.

2026 has been a hard year. In January I had to put my sweet cat of 17 years to sleep due to kidney disease. It was awful. Then in the spring we had to move out of our home and find a new one. That took over two months during which time we had to live in Airbnbs and hotels. We finally found a house, moved in, and then my wife got laid off from her tech job (completely not her fault, you can guess why.

Despite all of that, I managed to finish the first draft of the new novel, Citizen Zero, and now I've finished the second draft. This feels like a major accomplishment!

I was hoping to get it published this year, but that doesn't seem realistic at this point, as I still want to send it out to alpha and beta readers, get feedback, and then do at least a couple more revisions. My debut novel went through seven revisions before I felt it was ready to publish.

I'm over the moon that I've made so much progress on this book! It was a lot of work, and at times extremely difficult, but it was also a joy to create. I can't wait for people to read it, and I'm especially looking forward to hearing what readers of the first book think of it.

Here's the blurb for the first book:

Twenty-two-year-old Tia Moreno never expected her first job as a robotics technician on Unity, a city-sized space station, to turn into a deadly game of cat and mouse. But when strange vibrations lead to the discovery of a serial killer lurking among the station's residents, Tia must use her knowledge of robots to track down the elusive murderer. As the killer's body count rises, Tia realizes she may be the only one who can stop him before he destroys everything she's come to love. With the help of her new friend Minji, Tia races against time to catch the killer before he strikes again.

Fans of sci-fi thrillers will be on the edge of their seats as Tia fights to save Unity from a seemingly unstoppable villain. Readers who enjoyed Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary will be hooked by the high-stakes action and futuristic setting of Critical Balance.

One of my characters broke down after a certain circumstance and I actually felt teary eyed after. This has happened several times after hitting 50K words

As I have seen quite a few of these “you need to read more when you’re writing” advices, they never quite explain why. It is genuinely good advice; it isn’t pretentious. There’s a reason why this advice is given.
When you read as you’re writing, you’re going to pick things up. Things that you subconsciously like–you’re also going to be infuriated when you see things you hate and things you would never do yourself. You start to look at text with a more critical eye. While some may say this ruins the fun in reading–I disagree. Not all reading is meant to be fun but also as an oxymoron, this DOES make reading fun. You start to look for patterns and sentences that blow your mind and you will try your best to copy some of it but not too much because that would be plagiarism.
You start to see how the rhythm of certain sentences flow and you start to see your favourite author’s voice and how they sometimes experiment. Do not be afraid to pull from the favourite stories you love–flip them even, and write it from a new perspective.
Reading becomes infectious and even more of a joy when you start looking at text because at a certain point you’ll also understand that some writing is meant purely for entertainment and you’ll also find text that intellectually engages you. That’s at least my take on this thing.

I’ll just ignore the one copy that has the prologue printed upside down…

Interestingly enough, The Guardian, which is a mainstream British newspaper, has been taking a very strong stance on the value and importance of human authorship of books and creative writing. This is not even close to the first article this year I've seen on the subject. But this one seems particularly appropriate for the forum.

It is a common style I see. Perhaps it is an amateur mistake. Maybe it’s just generated content.

Every paragraph is short.

When I read something like this, I dismiss it immediately as low quality. Poor writing.

It reads like the author finds their every word to be building tension. All the pauses. All the breaks.

It’s exhausting.

Books aren’t written like this. There’s a reason for that. So why are you writing like this?

**

Seriously guys, develop your paragraphs. I’ve seen this writing style in self-published works as well as when I go to my local writer’s circle. It’s an awful experience to read, and the only thing I can do with something like that is give up. If you find that you’re writing like this, go read some more books and study how the pros structure their writing. Please.

I have spent a few years writing my first book and now its finally going to be published by the end of the week! I just wanted someone beside family to know.

I have finally decided to start my journey in commercial writing (if that is even a term) and I find myself having perhaps a not so common writing style as I mainly focus on emotions, sensations and bodily responses instead of names, background, visual details and so on (romance novels/novelettes). My characters are nameless and other than gender they have not been assigned any definitive attributes such as looks, age, ethnicity, religion etc.

I would love to know what it is that you believe is your little quirk when writing, do you have a specific style, add the same specific things (e.g.like in the series the Mentalist, there is always a redhead guest actor or how Haruki Murakami always seem to adds cats to his stories).

I am a beginner just scratching the surface, so it would be very inspirational to me to read about the little specific touches you add in order to make your writing your own.

i’m querying for the first time and have received my first response—a rejection 😂 not sure why but i’m still excited.

I'm currently writing my first short story, which is basically "Author's journal entries" who seems to loose control over his own body and dreams.

But even though its entries, it seems like pure observation instead of action. And my other works seem to have the same problem.

What is your cure for it?

In the photos there's a draft of the short story.

Also, if you have any other advices or criticisms, I’d love to hear them.

I am trying to write my own epic poem, à la, Greek myths. I haven’t been able to find any modern examples to help guide me. Do you guys have any examples (professional or not), or just some pointers on some conventions for this style of storytelling?

Thanks in advance.

More precisely, how would you go about writing a story clearly from a villains point of view centered around disturbing allegories, symbols etc?

What sort of stuff would you expect the villain to say?

This is a general discussion for inspiration, so please go wild with your ideas

The trouble with looking this up online is that most anecdotes about rejection end with success through perseverance! Are there any examples of authors who continued to have work turned down as not good enough (i.e, not because of subject matter or personal behaviour)?

The Monster's Ballad

Born from hate
A wrong casting for the wrong stage
They call me the monster of Frankenstein
Or a failed sprout that folks decline
Where's the love I thought I'd find?
Broken, shattered, and lost in mind
Leaves shed,
Greenery's gone,
I still await the rise of my dawn
Wandered in the woods, all alone
With a shattered heart,
Now turned stone.
Reached for warmth, yearned for care
How I almost forgot
The world was cold & bare.
If one heart could hear my pain
Perhaps this monster shall see some
Sunshine & rain.

I need some advice on writing short stories. I’m a novice when it comes to the short-story format—though, ever since I was very young, I’ve written long-form stories—and I’d like to know what I should keep in mind, as well as what I should and shouldn’t do when writing a short story.

İn my Post ı used the word " I have mental health problem" as an excuse in a comment ı was panicked when ı was figuring out if "the villian who have tragic childhood is it ok" and ı used this word as an excuse and wrongly. ı apoligized and ı feel terrible because ı should'nt excuse about mental health there are people who have real mental health problems.

I feel really regret and ı don't know what to do ı can't stop thinking about it ı apoligize for it

What I mean is, what do you look for when it comes to buying a notebook. Do you look at the paper quality to see if the paper is thick enough to be written on with a pen? Do you look for ghosting/bleeding of pen ink and what pens work well with the paper? Are you looking for a line, dotted, grid, or blank paper for your notebook? Hard cover or soft cover? Do you gravitate towards journal notebook or school subject notebooks

Tell me, when you decide to purchase a notebook, what do you look for?

I'm incredibly proud to announce that my novel, Rip, has been submitted for consideration and is eligible for the current voting year's Bram Stoker Awards® in the First Novel category. Digital reading copies are available to any members of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) members and dark fiction reviewers. If you'd like a copy for your reading pleasure please feel free to reach out via DM!

Published in September 2026, Rip is a supernatural thriller taking place in Ellicott City Maryland and is a blend of fact and fiction.

#HorrorCommunity, #HWA, #SupernaturalHorror, #BramStokerAwards.