In Today’s Journal
* Doing Nothing and Loving It
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Doing Nothing and Loving It
I’ve never been good before at doing nothing. But recently, I’m getting in some practice. And I’m finding out it isn’t a horrible gig.
I’m not stuck in a malaise of any kind, and when I do write fiction I write ‘into the dark’—which only means I run through the characters’ story with them as it unfolds and write down what happens—so for me the so-called ‘writer’s block’ can’t (and doesn’t) exist.
I’m just not writing fiction at the moment. Actually I haven’t written a word of fiction since BO-53 wrapped back in December.
Because I’ve trained myself to think like a fiction writer, I have no shortage of story ideas (or story starters). They’ve tugged at me now and then, but I haven’t been tempted to write them. Or at least not tempted strongly enough to sit down and actually do it.
And I’m not even sure why. That’s the only puzzle to this whole thing. I do have a few ideas why that’s the case:
Maybe I’m waiting for my brain to hand me a new series or saga character in western or action-adventure or thriller or SF or crime-detective genre. I do love writing series and sagas (especially sagas).
Or maybe I’m waiting for my head to settle on a new Blackwell Ops leading man or woman.
Or maybe I’m waiting for a new Stern Talbot PI situation (problem, conflict, whatever) to pop into my head. I really loved writing The Darling Members Club and The Waller Files. The other novels and novellas were pretty good too, but I flat loved writing those two.
Or maybe I’m wanting to write a mafia-centric ‘Brooklyn’ story. I love the challenges and wise-guy situations and dialogue and dialect of those. Always a lot of great characters on both side of the fence.
Or maybe I’m just at a point with my fiction writing where, as my dear friend RS said to me on the phone the other day, “you certainly have nothing left to prove.”
He might well be right about that.
In all my 73 years, I literally hadn’t thought of having lived my life as if I had something to prove until he said that. And I’m not complaining. I’m grateful to him.
I even thought about that for a few hours after we hung up, and I’m still thinking about it off and on a couple of days later.
It was a kind of epiphany to realize that during most of my life since I was about 10 years old (when I made a conscious decision during a somewhat traumatic event) almost everything I’ve done has been to prove something.
If there’s any saving grace to that mindset, it’s that I’ve always endeavored to prove things to myself, never to anyone else. Which in my humble opinion should be the natural state of things.
As I’ve said many times before, the only truly valid comparison anyone should make is who they are or what they do Today vs. who they were or what they did Yesterday. I guess that’s why I’ve been so big on setting personal goals, especially with my writing.
Why especially with my writing?
Because that’s pretty much the one area in which nobody else’s opinion truly matters and where nobody else’s priorities enter in, at least for the long term. It’s only the characters and me. Nobody else. And as far as the characters are concerned, it’s nobody else’s business.
It’s that way especially in today’s publishing environment. I mean, we fictionists can write whatever we want—whatever genre, whatever length, etc.—and publish at will. Can it ever get better than that? I don’t think so.
Anyway, I’ll come out the other side of whatever this is, and of course I’ll go all Vesuvius and tell you about it.
In the meantime, I’ll see whether I can scare up some topics for you on fiction writing soon and deliver those via TNDJ.
Maybe I’ll read over Writing Better Fiction and see whether I can elaborate in greater depth on any of the topics I crammed into that book.
And of course I’m always open to hearing about any fiction-writing or publishing topics you’d like me to address. Just leave a comment or email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
If I do hold forth on your suggestion, I won’t use your name (or pen name) unless you want me to.
And if you DO want me to mention your name, I’d be happy to also tell our TNDJ family where to find your website and/or your book or whatever else. (Just be sure to provide a URL so I don’t have to go looking for it.)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
The Three Book Marketing Methods That Consistently Work
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 810
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 810
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date………… XXXXX
Fiction for January………………………… XXXX
Fiction for 2026…………………………… XXXX
Nonfiction for January.…………………… 6350
Nonfiction for 2026………………..……… 6350
2026 consumable words………………… 6350
2026 Novels to Date……………………… 0
2026 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2026 Short Stories to Date……………… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 123
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29