In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day (Expanded)
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day (Expanded)
Quote 1: “What does it mean to write awesomely? At the very least, it means giving your readers more than a by-the-numbers story.” James Scott Bell
“More than a by-the-numbers story.” I like that. it’s a great analogy. No great painting was ever created on a by-the-numbers canvas. Of course, Mr. Bell stopped too soon.
So how do you give your readers more than a by-the-numbers story? Easy. “By the numbers” comes from the conscious mind.
If you trust what you’ve absorbed over the years about storytelling, tap into your subconscious, and just write what comes, you’ll give readers something truly unique, something that’s truly from your essence.
Note: You won’t believe what you’ve written is adequate, much less really good. That’s because you’re with your own voice 24/7/365, so it’s boring to you. Your readers don’t have that problem.
Quote 2: “A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.” Don Roff
I’m not sure what a day of “bad” writing is, unless it’s a day when you struggle to force your story and characters to remain true to your preplanned outline, character sketches etc.
(Yes, I’ve been there, albeit in a different lifetime years ago. Most often, any struggles to remain true to an outline or even to write an outline in the first place stopped me cold.)
If you WITD and are able to resist your conscious mind intervening you will probably never experience a day of “bad” writing.
Of course, life might still intervene with illness or side trips or just not being in the right mood or any number of other situations. Any of those might cause you to experience a day of “little” writing or a day of “less” writing than you expected to get done.
Either of which is still eminently better than a day of no writing.
Quote 3: “Make writing your priority.” David Farland
Short of advocating Heinlein’s Rules and WITD, this is probably the best tip any professional writer ever put out there.
Perhaps this would be more accurately stated as “make that-you-write a high priority.” Depending on your personality and your personal situation, maybe your children come first on your list of priorities, or your wife, or your family as a whole.
But never allow sitting at your desk staring off into space become a higher priority than actually making the keys move beneath your fingertips and putting words on the page.
Which brings me back, probably not for the last time, to Heinlein’s Rules. But if you want to be a writer, really only the first two matter.
However you number and align your priorities, if you want to be successful as a writer You Must Write (Heinlein’s well-duh Rule Number One). And in what’s really a corollary to Rule 1, You Must Finish What You Write (Heinlein’s Rule 2, which frankly I’ve been falling off of lately).
Then comes Rule 3, easy-peasy and natural as falling off a log in a river full of rapids if you WITD: You Must Not Rewrite. In other words, don’t be so unsure of your skills and untrusting in yourself to allow your conscious mind to second-guess your creative subconscious. Just sit down at the keyboard and get on with it.
Everything else you can hire out if you want to: Covers, Submitting or Publishing, etc. But you have to do the actual writing yourself if you want to be a writer.
About Rule 4: Every professional fiction writer I know who’s also an indie publisher occasionally falls off Rule 4: You Must Put It On The Market (meaning you must submit or publish what you’ve written).
Dean Wesley Smith is no exception to this, despite owning a medium-sized publishing company with several employees and despite having an “in” at several major magazine markets for his short stories.
And I’m no exception to it. I currently have a sizeable backlog of short stories I’ve written that only certain friends and patrons have read. At one point I even had three novels I’d finished but hadn’t yet published.
When the excitement of writing takes priority, it’s easy to let Rule 4 slide. And that’s all right, at least up to a point. It kind of shows where your priorities are.
Talk with you later.
Of Interest
See “Lifetime Original Christmas Movies” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/lifetime-original-christmas-movies/. Some good writing advice.
See “Write Awesomely” at https://killzoneblog.com/2020/10/write-awesomely.html. I included this one mostly for the seed of the idea in the quote of the day.
See “A Sales Rep With No Regrets” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/a-sales-rep-with-no-regrets/. See PG’s very interesting take.
See “Library ebook lending surges…” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/library-ebook-lending-surges-as-uk-turns-to-fiction-during-lockdown/. Again, see PG’s take.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 790 words
Writing of The Ark (novel or something)
Day 1…… 3196 words. Total words to date…… 3196
Day 2…… 1441 words. Total words to date…… 4637
Day 3…… 3284 words. Total words to date…… 7921
Total fiction words for the month……… 12336
Total fiction words for the year………… 347530
Total nonfiction words for the month… 12240
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 162630
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 510160
Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 5
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 13
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 50
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 214
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31