In Today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* The Bradbury Challenge Report
* A Most Unusual Day
* The Ugliness of “Winner’s Tilt” Part 2
* Of Interest
Quotes of the Day
“We don’t really create ideas, we catch them, like fish.” David Lynch (via Andrew Schrater)
“Saw this quote in a video about ideas and creative blocks and why some people get it while others don’t. The quote above, from the legend himself, and Stephen King, and Ray Bradbury, and thousands of other writers, shows that writers are not truly creators. We are the recorders of the world that is given to us.
“It isn’t that the ideas need to show themselves. We’re the ones who must open our eyes and our ears and the rest of our senses. In short, we must show up and actually listen. That’s why Writing Into the Dark is so special.” Andrew Schrater
Thanks, Andrew!
The Bradbury Challenge Report
Participating in any challenge is a great way to have fun and grow as a writer.
The requirement is to write at least one short story per week, then let me know the title, word count, and genre per the format below. During the past week, the following writers wrote these new stories:
- Vanessa V. Kilmer “Rome, E.O.” 3001 SyFy
- Christopher Ridge “I Wanna Snack” 1902 horror
- Christopher Ridge “The Last Room on the Left” 1881 thriller
- KC Riggs “Second Wind” 2236 Paranormal
- Dave Taylor “A Summer to Remember” 2,093 Science Fiction
- Dave Taylor “The Waitress’s Surprise” 2,522 Science Fiction
- Glynn Young “Family Conference” 3490 General
Congratulations to all of these writers.
A Most Unusual Day
In case you missed it, I’m serializing a new long short story over on the Stanbrough Writes substack.
In fact, I found a couple of problems in the first installment and updated the post. You can see that updated installment (Chapters 1 & 2) here. If you’re one who studies my fiction and have already read it, you might take a look and see what I updated. (grin)
As long as I was there, I also read over and updated all the other installments in the story. The second installment will land today at around 10 a.m. Arizona time.
The Ugliness of “Winner’s Tilt” Part 2
Okay, in yesterday’s post I did a lot of whining and got at least most of it out of my system. Thanks for listening. (grin) Here’s the rest of the story:
In my more rational moments I’m honestly happy for those bestselling writers I mentioned yesterday even though their work treated me, as a reader, so rudely. But as a fellow fiction writer, it still feels harshly paradoxical that they’ve somehow “made it” and I haven’t.
Of course (say it with me), Marketing is the obvious low-hanging fruit here. But my own naiveté said it couldn’t be only marketing.
Could it? ‘Cause if it is, I’m well and plainly screwed.
For one thing, I’ve never had a broad reader base of folks who just love my work and who will buy, sight unseen, anything I write in any genre.
I hasten to add that’s my own stupid fault. I chose (and still choose) not to collect emails to build a “list,” which is precisely why I strongly recommend you DO collect emails to build a list. All the pundits say that’s a great idea. I’ve never felt quite right doing that, but that’s just me.
Anyway, eventually, somewhere in the midst of all that mud and grit and grime, I somehow happened on an old maxim I’ve often uttered to other fiction writers:
If you’re a writer, it doesn’t matter what you write.
It only matters that you write.
So it naturally followed that what I needed to do was set aside all the nonsense. Or as my creative subconscious put it,
Um, I’m right here, Harv, so get over yourself, okay? If you wanna be a writer again, write already. If you don’t, go find something you enjoy more than the characters and their stories and do that instead. ‘Cause seriously, dude, nobody cares.
As I wrote in another post recently, I’ve always liked that kind of honest, straightforward, no-BS input far more than the goofy, feel-good “Yes! You can do this!” platitudes that sound good but mean nothing.
So I started writing again. It was just that simple. And for the first time in six months I feel more or less whole again.
Primarily, I believe, I started writing again because I was finally able to step outside of myself and my “poor me” pity party and focus again on the characters and their problems, which (fortunately for me) make some pretty entertaining stories. Instead of, say, this sort of drivel.
And they’re definitely more entertaining than the claptrap drivel being generated by some of my contemporaries in the craft, even the bestsellers.
Yeah, there’s still a little envy at play—here I’ll invoke the excuse that I’m only human—but the self-crippling bitterness has finally receded into its own silly darkness.
I hope it stays there. I’d still like to end my days by faceplanting on the keyboard of my laptop just after I write the final sentence of my latest (and last) story or novel.
Amen. Talk with you again soon.