A Brief Lesson on Averages

In today’s Journal

* A Brief Lesson on Averages
* Coming Up Soon
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

A Brief Lesson on Averages

Okay, one, when you miss a day of writing or fall short of your daily goal, believe in yourself.

You know you are capable of writing 1000 or 2250 words per day. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have joined in the Great September Challenge.

Likewise my own challenge for this month is to write 3000 words per day.

But again, that’s on average.

And I’ve kept a running daily average below in Numbers so you can keep tabs on me if you want.

Thanks to three poor days of writing in a row—only 2127 on Sep 9, 1092 on Sep 10, and 1351 on Sep 11—my average dipped below 3000 wpd (2856) for the first time since the challenge started.

But keeping an eye on that average told me what I needed to do.

So yesterday (with no appointments or trips to Sierra Vista or other problems that required my attention) I put the time in the chair and wrote 4267 words.

That brought my fiction word count for the month up to 35690, and it helped my average. But it still didn’t bring it back above 3000 wpd.

So bear in mind, it’s much easier to KEEP your average up than it is to BRING it up after it’s dropped. Yeah, even for me.

So what’s the lesson?

As I’ve said before, when the words are flowing and the story’s coming, if at all possible stay in the chair a few more minutes and keep writing. If you miss your goal, get as close as you can before you shut it down for the day.

Never assume you can catch up later.

But also, believe in yourself. You know you can do it, so do it. Strive every day to reach your daily goal (1000 or 2250 words), and if you miss, don’t beat yourself up over it.

Just get up tomorrow and go at it again.

Coming Up Soon

Michaele Lockhart—a good friend and a professional fiction writer and writing instructor whom I admire—and I have been talking via email recently about MFA programs and how they can completely derail writers.

Soon I’ll share some of those thoughts in two or three posts on TNDJ.

I’ll probably pace myself, posting those intermittently with other posts, and those will go out to everyone, whether or not they’re paid subscribers.

I’m still working out the wrinkles of how best to present those posts, but they’re coming soon. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you’re thinking of going for your MFA, I recommend you keep your money in your pocket until you’ve read those very revealing posts. I think you won’t be sorry.

At the outside worst, reading those posts will prepare you to watch for things in your MFA course that you should avoid if you want to learn something useful and end up actually making a living (or even coffee money) as a writer.

In my personal experience, it’s always been better to not go into debt for something you don’t really need—especially something that will actually stunt your development as a writer and derail your career as a writer.

And even if you could afford to pay cash for your MFA, believe me it’s better to have that cash in the bank. Or your mattress.

Or spend it on something that will broaden your horizons, like a cruise.

Or booze and broads (or hunks). But for goodness sake don’t just throw it away.

Of course, I’m joking about the broads and hunks. Invest in the fight against global warming or saving the whales or something.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Quantity Production – Arthur J. Burkshttps://pulppipepoetry.substack.com/p/quantity-production-arthur-j-burks

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 620

Writing of Blackwell Ops 28: Ariana Ramos

Day 4…… 3941 words. To date…… 9389 (Sep1)
Day 5…… 2734 words. To date…… 12123
Day 6…… 2584 words. To date…… 14707
Day 7…… 3711 words. To date…… 18418
Day 8…… 3668 words. To date…… 22086
Day 9…… 0613 words. To date…… 22699
Day 10…. 2568 words. To date…… 25267
Day 11…. 3325 words. To date…… 28592
Day 12…. 2127 words. To date…… 30719
Day 13…. 1092 words. To date…… 31811
Day 14…. 1351 words. To date…… 33162
Day 15…. 4267 words. To date…… 37429

Fiction for September…………………….. 35690
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 643256
Fiction since October 1…………………… 819478
Nonfiction for September………………… 12600
Nonfiction for 2024………………………… 287440
2024 consumable words………………….. 803861

Average Fiction WPD (September)……… 2974

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 12
2024 Novellas to Date……………………. 0
2024 Short Stories to Date………………. 5
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 94
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………. 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………. 242
Short story collections……………………. 29

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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