Hey Folks,
Even after a relatively late night, I rolled out at 3:30 this morning. Not sure how much I’ll get done in writing today since it’s Saturday.
TOPIC: On Challenges, Part 2
Note: This follows on yesterday’s topic. If you haven’t read it, you can find it at http://hestanbrough.com/the-journal-friday-915/.
At the beginning of the calendar year, I challenged myself to write 15 novels during the year.
Later, after an intended novel fell short and ended as a novella, I adjusted the goal to 16 novels or novellas. That should have clued me I was in trouble.
It didn’t. I plunged merrily ahead but conveniently forgot the whole purpose of a challenge: productivity.
In my desire to write a certain number of novels, I allowed myself to be overwhelmed. In short, I lost sight of the little picture: the word count.
Grandpa always said you can’t build a house, but you can drive a nail. (Or you can’t write a novel, but you can write a scene.)
If you drive enough nails, you’ll look up one day through the clearing smoke and see that you have a new house.
Now just for fun, let’s slip a bit afield.
Productivity isn’t finishing a certain number of novels or novellas or even short stories.
In its initial, base form, productivity is putting words on the page. Like it or not, it all boils back down to the basic act: word count is what produces short stories, novellas and novels. You can’t escape that fact.
I find it particularly telling (and humorous, actually) that so many writers wrinkle up their nose and eschew word count as if it were gross and even distasteful. Pedestrian, even. Like sex.
Well, it might be. But it’s still a necessary (if ugly, depending on your POV) act in which the writer must allow his conscious and subconscious mind to engage if he is to birth a new novel.
It occurs to me that the metaphor extends when you realize word count generally isn’t talked about in polite circles.
Get it?
And it’s something all writers engage in whether or not they want to admit it.
After all, if such things really were only for us peasants, Great Britain’s royal line would be really short. In fact, it would have ended abruptly on the other side of a pair of crossed arms and a head shaking side to side eons ago. (Somebody stop me!)
Okay. Okay (deep breaths). Enough on the metaphor.
Now I don’t push productivity for its own sake. I push productivity as a matter of business.
The more works a writer has “out there” the greater the chance readers will stumble on something he’s written, like it, and buy more.
This is common sense, even given that what was once common for most seems to have become a luxury for many. But I digress.
Noting word count, whether it’s done publicly (as here) or in private (all the better people only do it in private) is what drives the writer to produce more literary children.
And when our word-count drive begins to weaken, there’s no better way to enhance it than to give ourselves a challenge.
Try it. You’ll like it. And you don’t have to tell anybody.
***
Well, I didn’t get a lot done today. I got a lot done but not a lot of writing. Calling it early to watch a ball game.
Back tomorrow.
Of Interest
Here you go, SF folks. How could the government use the new “Micropods” at http://www.sciencealert.com/vaccines-made-of-these-tiny-micropods-could-an-end-to-booster-shots/.
Even if you don’t write erotic fiction, see “Smashwords Implements New Classifications for Erotic Fiction” at http://blog.smashwords.com/2017/09/smashwords-erotica.html. Lot of good info there on BISAC codes, etc.
Fiction Words: 1514
Nonfiction Words: 620 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 2134
Writing of Doctor Ramsey (novel, working title)
Day 1…… 1781 words. Total words to date…… 1781
Day 2…… 2678 words. Total words to date…… 4459
Day 3…… 1142 words. Total words to date…… 5601
Day 4…… 2460 words. Total words to date…… 8061
Day 5…… 1302 words. Total words to date…… 9363
Day 6…… 3182 words. Total words to date…… 12545
Day 7…… 3775 words. Total words to date…… 16320
Day 8…… 3147 words. Total words to date…… 19467
Day 9…… 2780 words. Total words to date…… 22247
Day 10… 3614 words. Total words to date…… 25861
Day 11… 1514 words. Total words to date…… 27375
Total fiction words for the month……… 34456
Total fiction words for the year………… 414076
Total nonfiction words for the month… 8820
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 145220
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 559296
The Daily Journal blog streak……………………………………… 657 days
Calendar Year 2017 Novels to Date………………………… 8
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 26
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 4
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………………… 182