The first page that is displayed when
I open my internet browser each day

Blazing Reader,

When most people open their internet browser, it goes straight to Google.

If they belong to a "small fringe minority" then it might bring up Swisscows, DuckDuckGo or some other alternative zoological search engine.

Not mine.

I set up my browser to open with this super long URL: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1b6acf_0798947a9ce543e79c77ff66296267c5~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_640,h_960,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/1b6acf_0798947a9ce543e79c77ff66296267c5~mv2.png

It displays a meme from Jim Rohn saying: "Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practised every day."

For me, success is getting my next novel out, hence my discipline of daily story crafting. I'd prefer to put in four hours every day. Sadly, book sales as yet don't allow that kind of dedication. Hence my (barely) practical goal is one hour a day. It adds up. 30+ hours a month. 365ish hours a year.

It took me 1,000 hours to write Much Ado About Corona. A 500-page novel every two to three years is success to me. It certainly has worked out for Dan Brown.

Now, some days — between client work, promoting the novel and raising my son as a single dad — even an hour is cutting into sleep time. Those days, instead of doing nothing, I compromise and put in only a half-hour. I keep a log and make the time up later.

The main thing is not missing a day.

Otherwise the Muse might die.

And me with her.

After doing this for years, I wouldn't even say it's discipline. It's not even really a habit. It just became part of who I am.

—John C.A. Manley

PS Novelist Nowick Gray, author of Chameleon: The Virtual Reality Virus, had this to say about my 1,000 hours of daily discipline: "I have high praise for Much Ado About Corona's characterization, pacing, condensed truth and irony, and just the right amount of humour.... The result is both artful and true to our experience—one that never will be forgotten."

PPS If you haven't read Much Ado About Corona yet, why not make a chapter a day your daily discipline for the next 113 days? Put down the TV remote, log out of YouTube and get lost in a story "that never will be forgotten." You can buy yourself a copy at: https://MuchAdoAboutCorona.com

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/