In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Welcome
* Great Start on the New Novel
* A Great Question
* A Recommendation for a WordPress Theme
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” Don Marquis
Welcome
Welcome to William P3 (grin) and any other new subscribers or readers of the Journal. I hope you will find it useful.
Get the Archives and other free downloads at the Journal website. And I don’t do the ambush thing requiring an email address. Just click the links and a PDF will download in a new page.
I also recommend reading “I Believe in You”.
If you wanna see my tired old mug, here’s a video where bestselling author Vin Zandri and I are chatting about writing and a bunch of other stuff.
We plan to do that again today. I’ll post the link here in the Journal after the fact.
Great Start on the New Novel
Even having deleted what I’d written the first time I tried this novel a few months ago (see “A Great Question” below), the general situation was fresh in my mind, partly because it bled over from the previous novel in the Gap series.
So I got a really good start on it, ending the day with a little over 4000 words. My daily goal remains the same: 3000 words per day or more of publishable fiction. And I’m no longer including words I’ve written and then cut. Only what I write that will be included in the finished product.
I also posted the first four chapters on the Writing in Public substack. You can read them there.
As I mentioned yesterday, if you’ve ever been interested in checking out the Wes Crowley saga, this would be a perfect opportunity.
The very first book in the overall saga, Rise of a Warrior, is also available free. Just email me if you’d like a copy. Remember to tell me which eformat you would like.
Of course, this is also an excellent chance for you to see whether I practice what I preach. (grin)
A Great Question
I got a great question on yesterday’s post. Big Philly wrote
“How do you discern when it’s OK to delete/scrap a manuscript and start over? I’m curious to know so as to still comply with Heinlein’s Rule #2 and avoiding Critical Voice Rewriting.”
Actually, he answered his own question. And I’m sure he would have realized that if I hadn’t been so quick to respond:
“When you *think* you can ‘fix’ an older manuscript fragment by rewriting it, that’s always the critical voice talking. And that’s when I grin, scrap it, and start over.
“To a writer, words are the same as nails to a carpenter or a construction foreman. If you find a bent one, or a box of bent ones, you throw it out and get a new box.
“And for the record, Heinlein himself admittied to breaking his own rules (except Rule 3) several times.
“If you start a story and it doesn’t work, obviously you won’t finish it so just pitch it out. Then, if the idea of it still appeals to you, start over. If it doesn’t, start something else.”
This is exactly what I do, and it works.
Yes, I know. I can almost hear some of you saying, “Well, it works for you.”
But if you write into the dark and trust your characters, it will work just as well or better for you. But I’m not asking you to believe me. Just take a deep breath and try WITD for yourself.
A Recommendation for a WordPress Theme
I got another great question. Not about writing but about websites. My friend Patrick D was intrigued with how StoneThread Publishing is so responsive. (My other websites are also fully responsive.)
Whether you’re looking at any of the genre pages on a large-screen monitor, a laptop, a tablet, or a phone, you’ll still see all the book covers in their original alignment, only in a smaller size.
In other words, they don’t remain the same size and force you to scroll side to side.
As I told Patrick, to get that kind of functionality and a great deal more, visit Generate Press. The developer, Tom Usborne, is a great guy who answers his own emails. I like that.
Several years ago, I got in on the ground floor and got the Lifetime membership at a great price. I’ve been so pleased over the years that from time to time I send Tom a donation just because.
I use Generate Press and the GP Premium plugin on all of my sites (six) plus a few sites I built for clients back when I was still doing that. It is perfect.
Talk with you again soon. I can’t tell you how very good it feels to be reporting fiction numbers again after my three-day layoff. (grin)
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 810
Writing of Rose Padilla (WCG10SF5)
Day 1…… 4086 words. To date…… 4086
Fiction for November…………………… 21594
Fiction for 2023………………………… 340238
Fiction since August 1………………… 225678
Nonfiction for November……………… 8560
Nonfiction for the year……………… 236450
Annual consumable words………… 573181
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 7
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 7
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 78
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 235
Short story collections…………………… 31
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Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.