The Journal: Quotes and Other Things

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* If you’ve never read
* In some of Dean’s lectures
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quotes of the Day

“I teach a number of writing classes and attend my share of conferences, and one of the questions that always comes up goes something like this: ‘I hear authors talk about how there comes a point in every story when the characters take over and start writing the story for you. Does that happen to you?’ The short answer is no; and frankly, it sort of ticks me off. I’d love to cede the process of plot development to my characters.” John Gilstrap

I wish I could teach him the simple lesson: to trust himself, to trust what he knows.

“Just then it came to him that he was going to die. It came with a rush; not as a rushof water nor of wind, but of a sudden evil-smelling emptiness and the odd thing was that the hyena slipped lightly along the edge of it.” Ernest Hemingway in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”

“He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.” Again, Ernest Hemingway in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”

If you’ve never read “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” I hope you will find it and read it. The best way is to purchase The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: Finca Vigia Edition.

And if you’ve read it, I hope you’ll read it again. In most of his stories, though they are not about writing, he talks about writing. It’s an excellent way to learn how to “write the best sentence you can.”

In some of Dean’s lectures and workshops, he talks a lot about the Adobe In-Design program. If you like Adobe and don’t mind paying a monthly fee to use it, that’s fine.

But if you’d rather make a one-time payment and own the program, I recommend Serif’s Affinity Publisher. It costs only $50 (less than 2 months rental of In-Design), and it’s very user friendly.

Not only can you lay out magazines, novels, etc. but you can also use it to design book covers.

You can learn about Affinity Publisher and even download a free trial version at https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/.

Disclaimer: I have Affinity Publisher, but for now I’m still using Serif’s legacy program, Serif PagePlus. I also recommend that program for book covers if you can still find a copy.

Talk with you again when I can.

Of Interest

See “A Few More Hours On The Half-Priced Sale” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/a-few-more-hours-on-the-half-priced-sale/.

See “Well Behaved Characters (Redux)” at https://killzoneblog.com/2020/09/27038.html.

See “Retirement Secrets of Mexico Preorder” at https://russellblake.com/retirement-secrets-of-mexico-preorder/. I found this of interest so I thought you might too.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 450 words

Writing of

Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for the month……… 0
Total fiction words for the year………… 315283
Total nonfiction words for the month… 3290
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 140860
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 456143

Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 5
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 12
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 50
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 208
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31