In Today’s Journal
* A New Short Story
* Reminder
* Dr. Mardy Asked
* And Another Writer Asked
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A New Short Story
“Draped Like Muga Silk” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out.
I don’t remember much about this story, but I remember the title and that the story felt good when I wrote it. If you enjoy it, please tell Everyone. If you don’t, shh! (grin)
Reminder
Today is Saturday. This is your friendly reminder to get your Bradbury Challenge story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.
Dr. Mardy Asked
Yesterday, in a comment on yesterday’s TNDJ post, Dr. Mardy Grothe thanked me for including his compilation of the best Great Opening Lines of 2024 in Of Interest. Then he asked which were my favorites and why.
I thought my response might be of interest. After all, I’ve written a FREE short book titled Writing Great Beginnings. You only have to click the link to download it.
Here’s my response to Dr. Mardy:
My favorite is Everett’s “Those little bastards were hiding out there in the tall grass.” (Though in my mind I flashed to a rice paddy in Vietnam, not slaves.)
The other intriguing ones were
Chung’s “I didn’t start out wanting to be a guy.”
Gagne’s “Whenever I ask my mother if she remembers the time in second grade when I stabbed a kid in the head with a pencil, her answer is the same:
‘Vaguely.’”
Burns’ “Waylon Joseph crouched behind Mercury’s ballfields bleachers on the south end of town, smoking a cigarette and hiding from his wife.” and
Ailes’ “For my boyfriend’s thirtieth birthday I thought I’d go all out and surprise him with a pregnancy.”
As for why….
Whenever possible (IMHO) an opening should be brisk and populated with action verbs. Those that include state-of-being or linking verbs don’t usually entice me to keep reading. [Although my personal favorite above includes a state-of-being verb.] Too many unnecessary moving parts, and all of them give the reader a chance to exit.
*
If you haven’t checked out the quotes Mardy listed yet, you can find them here.
And Another Writer Asked
A little later yesterday, another writer (Thanks, HG) asked this question in an email:
“I was puzzled by one thing you wrote today: ‘I’ll bet I wrote and then deleted 3000+ words.’ My understanding of writing into the dark is that we don’t edit or delete unless there are minor errors, etc. Would you explain this more?”
Note: Someone once said for every question that’s asked in class, probably several other people wanted to ask but didn’t. Something like that.
HG’s question is one I never would have thought to answer if someone hadn’t asked it directly. So if you ever have any questions, please leave a comment or email me and ask.
Here’s my slightly enhanced response:
When I sat down at the computer on Thursday, I’d just been through a day and a half of cycling over the whole story up to that point (around 14,000 words).
As a result, I think I was feeling a little pressure re finishing the novel by 31 December, although I didn’t realize it at the time. In other words, I let the critical voice sneak in.
So when I sat down, I was anxious to get on with the new parts of the story. I started typing, and I got around 500 or 600 words down, but none of it ‘felt’ right. (That tiny, quiet voice is from the characters.)
So in my frustration, I said aloud, “Nah, this is crap” and deleted it. Then through much of the day I repeated that process several more times. The frustration was a result of the fact that I’m very seldom afflicted with that condition.
But as the late morning and then the early afternoon wore on, I kept at it and I kept glancing at the clock. I try to end my ‘work’ day by 4 p.m., and I’m usually finished writing for the day by 1 or 2.
Finally, at around 3, I loosened up. The characters invited me into the story again, and the log jam broke loose. I wrote around 1500 words in that last hour, then called it a day at 4 p.m.
It was just one of those days. I’m glad they don’t occur very often.
Finally, I should also say that the characters eventually included (without me consciously thinking about it) part of what I had written and deleted earlier.
So I was on the right track the whole time. I just wasn’t immersed in the story listening to the characters. Which, of course, I advise you always to do.
Of Interest
Wow! Have We Done a Lot Includes a comprehensive list of current sales on Teachable and the codes to get them for half price.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 810
Writing of The Intermittent Ghost: Jack Temple (BO-31A)
Day 1…… 4202 words. To date…… 4202
Day 2…… 3055 words. To date…… 7257
Day 3…… 3412 words. To date…… 10669
Day 4…… 3352 words. To date…… 14021
Day 5…… 1153 words. To date…… 15174
Day 6…… 1785 words. To date…… 16959
Day 1…… 4638 words. To date…… 21597
Fiction for December………………… 93694
Fiction for 2024………………………. 839794
Nonfiction for December…………….. 26510
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 389080
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,228,874
Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3470
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 19
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 103
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 269
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: 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.