A Little Clarification re the Contest

by

In Today’s Journal

* A Little Clarification re the Contest
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

A Little Clarification re the Contest

I told a couple of writers some of this yesterday:

1. None of you “disappointed” me with your stories. You’re all in various stages of learning. If you don’t fall short now and then, you don’t learn.

2. I’m proud of all of you for having the confidence to submit short stories to a contest, whether it was your first time or whether you’ve been doing it for a while.

3. If you’re thinking about purchasing a line edit (my offer), please ONLY request a line edit AFTER you look over the stories again yourself and only if you feel like a line edit would be of value to you.

The line edit will be of real value only if you are able to apply it to your other works as well as to the specific story. Some are able to do that. Others, not so much. Only you know whether you’re able to do that.

Above all, don’t bust your budget to pay me for a line edit. What the line edit would teach you, you’ll learn anyway with more practice.

I only put a price on it because it will take a considerable chunk of my time and so it will feel more important and valuable to you because you’re monetarily invested in it.

Frankly, I’d be just as happy if nobody asked for a line edit. It would be less expensive for you to buy and study Writing Better Fiction if you don’t already have it.

And if you DO already have that book, I recommend you refer to it and maybe ask me questions before you pay me for a line edit. Most of the answers are in that one book.

The biggest lesson most of you need to take on board is to Read Your Work Aloud. If you do that, you’ll catch almost all (if not all) inadvertently omitted words plus any excess, awkward phrasing, etc.

Four or five decades ago I learned the value of reading my work aloud. At the time I was a nationally recognized poet, and I often read my poetry aloud, usually while outside, walking along a street or in a park.

At the time, I wasn’t reciting poetry to check it. I was reciting it because I enjoyed doing so.

Okay, so I’d written a poem about thirteen tall, thin trees that apparently had been planted to form a kind of windbreak. One tree stood a little apart from the others, and in my mind, I likened them to Christ and his twelve apostles.

So that gives you an idea of the relatively serious, solemn tone of the poem.

As I was reading it aloud for the first time, I heard myself say this line:

They stand alone, breaking an evil wind.

Grin. Yep, that’s what I wrote. I’m sure glad I wasn’t reading that one in a public reading. Kind’a destroys the solemn, serious atmosphere, doesn’t it?

I laughed ’til I thought I was gonna fall over. And of course, I revised the poem around that line before I eventually published it.

I hope this clears things up.

Talk with you again soon.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 540

Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty

Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Day 2…… 1110 words. To date…… 4360

Fiction for August..………………….. 1110
Fiction for 2025………………………. 527757
Nonfiction for August………………… 7900
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 176300
2025 consumable words…………….. 696443

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
Short story collections……………………. 29

Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.

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Questions on writing and publishing are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.