In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Finger Wagging at the Guy in the Mirror
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” Paulo Coelho, from “The Alchemist”
Finger Wagging at the Guy in the Mirror
This is about personal challenges.
I regularly challenge other writers to challenge themselves only because I know the value of challenges to a fiction writer’s success.
When I first started writing fiction in earnest back in early 2014, I set a solid daily word count goal of 3000 words per day.
As a result, many times I exceeded that goal (’cause a story ends where it ends and a novel runs when it runs) and compiled a monthly fiction word count in excess of 90,000 words.
But even when I “failed” miserably, I failed to success with upward of 70,000 words per month.
All because that daily word count goal drove my stubborn determination to remain in the chair—or keep coming back to the chair—until I’d reached my daily goal.
Such a challenge is particularly important when a short story wraps at under 3000 words or on those days when a novel doesn’t run.
Of course, with all that practice, my fiction-writing skills improved too, by leaps and bounds.
Then, some seven or eight years later, I got a little too full of myself and decided I was writing enough (and writing well enough) that I no longer needed a daily word count goal.
I largely left short fiction behind and started focusing instead on how many novels I could write in what length of time. Because I like writing novels.
That was a severe mistake. Sometimes even flowing novels wrap with fewer than 3000 words. Most of those times I took the rest of the day and maybe the next few days “off.” Just as I have this time.
And my monthly production numbers fell off a cliff. This month, even if I write exactly 3000 words per day every remaining day before September 1, I’ll reach only 59,647 words for August.
More importantly, my practicing (putting new words on the page) and therefore my learning process slowed. A lot.
Don’t get me wrong. Turning out a novel every two weeks or every month or even every few months is wonderful.
But as two other writers reminded me recently, if you put the words on the page every day in accordance with your daily goal, the short stories, novellas and novels will come of their own accord. Get it?
If you’re a writer, THAT you write—that you put new words on the page—is what is important. Where those words go, into which stories or novellas or novels, not so much. Because that will take care of itself.
Not to mention that many of those short stories will want to take off and become novellas or novels.
That fact alone excites me to no end. It’s almost like I’m starting all over again, and I LOVE that feeling—because I know what can (and will) happen. Been there, done that. And I wanna do it again.
So beginning officially on September 1, I’m doing two things to correct my downward spiral:
- I’m reestablishing my personal daily word-count goal of 3000 words per day, and
- I’m reentering the Bradbury Challenge. Doing so will force me to produce.
I’ll report my resulting short stories every Monday right along with everyone else’s.
Why?
Well, for one thing, a leader (instructor) should lead from the front, right? He should teach by example, right?
There are benefits. Entering the Bradbury Challenge again will help me reach and maintain my daily word-count goal and keep my Stanbrough Writes substack going with a new short story every week.
Of course it will also greatly increase my inventory. As of yesterday, I had 4 short stories on the year and 241 since I started writing them in early 2014.
Thanks to reentering the Bradbury Challenge, by December 31 I’ll have at least 13 short stories on the year and 260 stories since I started in 2014.
For the record, although some of the new short stories will derive from the Wes Crowley or Blackwell Ops or other worlds in which I write, none of the stories will be part of a novel that I simply pull out and post as a short story. All of them will be new, original stories in their own right. Otherwise the words won’t count as new words.
The point of all of this is to encourage you to do the same thing.
A Few Disclaimers—
- I understand you have a life and maybe a day-job and a wife or husband or children and whatever other life commitments.
- I also understand not everyone has the time available to them that I have.
- And I understand that sometimes life hands you unexpected events that must take priority.
If you count gestation, I’m a longtime (72-year) me-too member of that club.
That said, if you are or seriously want to be a fiction writer can set a daily word-count goal and reach it.
- If you can carve out only a half-hour per day, hold that time sacrosanct. Set a daily goal to write at least 550 words of publishable fiction per day. It adds up quickly.
- Of course, if you can find an hour per day to write (even in 15-minute or half-hour segments), double that. (Don’t include time to “edit.” You don’t need it.)
- If you’re fortunate enough to have more disposable time, good: write more.
The words will not always flow.
The stories will not always run.
Life things will come up and you will have to address those instead of writing fiction.
But that’s the beauty of a daily word-count goal: It resets to zero each morning. Every morning is a new day.
And as you practice disciplining yourself and prioritizing your available time, on most days the words WILL come and the stories WILL run. I promise.
I would wish you luck with this, but luck isn’t really necessary.
All that’s necessary is for you to do your own finger-wagging session with the guy or gal in your mirror.
It really is that simple.
Note—As you’re reading this, I actually started my personal challenge yesterday, while my youngest son is visiting (a semi-rare occurrence).
I also wrote most of this post yesterday. Afterward, I finished the reading and critique of my mentee’s novelette, and then I started a new story.
Of course, as I wrote this I had no way of knowing whether that was a short story or the beginning of a novella or novel.
As I wrote this I could only anticipate that I would either finish the story or would finish it today and that I would write at least 3000 words of fiction, either in that story or in that one and the start of something else.
I also anticipated if that story did not wrap as a short story and wanted to run on to be something longer, I would interrupt it and write another story. Because again, THAT I put new words on the page is vastly more important than into which stories they go.
Besides, the Bradbury Challenge numbers post on Monday, August 26, and I want at least one story to be finished by then. (grin)
UPDATE: I did write a new short story yesterday and it did wrap. The numbers are below. So a good start for me to ramping up for September. I wish the same for you.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Best Email Services for Authors I think this is a repeat, but if you want to market your work to readers, start building your email list and check this out.
If Our Universe Teems With Life, Where Are All The Intelligent Space Aliens?
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: “Democracy” Some good reminders. Democracy (our democratic republic) is far from perfect but it is far better than any other form of human government.
The Numbers
The Journal………………………………1300
Writing of “Ant’ny Falducci”
Day 1…… 3356 words. To date…… 3356 (done)
Fiction for August…………………….….… 42003
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 552406
Fiction since October 1………………… 774053
Nonfiction for August……………………… 20830
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 267840
2024 consumable words………………… 738836
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