In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Focus on Quantity, Yes
* The Writing
* Of Interest
Quotes of the Day
“In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.” Ray Bradbury
“Writing a lot (quantity) and practicing writing is extremely important. Detaching yourself from the result of the story is also important. (What’s important is THAT you write, not WHAT you write). But serious prolific fiction writers write a lot and write often and detach ourselves from the end result AS A MEANS of writing authentic, better quality stories, not IN PREPARATION for writing better quality stories.” Me to a writing friend
“Success is attaining your dream while helping others to benefit from that dream materializing.” Sugar Ray Leonard
“It is a paradox that in our time of drastic rapid change, when the future is in our midst devouring the present before our eyes, we have never been less certain about what is ahead of us.” Eric Hoffer
Focus on Quantity, Yes
Very short post today. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for a substack that landed in my inbox this morning. Great post.
While I have your attention, take a look at Frank Theodat’s “Focus on Quantity” at https://franktheodat.substack[dot]com/p/focus-on-quantity. Frank sent a version of that post to me first as a potential guest post. I rejected it. Shows you what I know.
He since revised it a little, and I highly recommend reading it. (Thanks, Frank. Much clearer now.)
Also see the first two quotes of the day above, repeated from yesterday.
The Writing
I’ve been taking a few days off as I continue to deal with my grief. However, I expect to be back writing fiction soon, maybe even today.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Why Authors Should Ditch Mailchimp and Move to Substack” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/why-authors-should-ditch-mailchimp-and-move-to-substack/.
See “OpenAI CEO warns Senate about AI interfering with elections” at https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/openai-ceo-warns-senate-about-ai-interfering-with-elections. Warns or affirms? Did the senate utter a collective sigh and “amen”? Story idea.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 350
Total fiction words for May……… 14404
Total fiction words for 2023………… 97868
Total nonfiction words for May… 16070
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 97760
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 195628
Calendar Year 2023 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2023 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2023 Short Stories to Date… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 221
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark, adherence to Heinlein’s Rules, and that following the myths of fiction writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
“Its not about speed!” I once saw a person make a similar comment on a writing forum. This person also was ‘polishing’ their novel that they had been working on for well over five years.
To me that sounds like hell. Reworking the same piece over and over is the definition of boredom in my opinion. Perfection, I’ve come to realize, is in the eye of the beholder, what one thinks is perfect another will think sucks.
Case in point. I am a BIG Shannara fan, its my favorite Fantasy series and to me Terry Brooks is on the same level as J.R.R. Tolkien. I have seen (and heard) other readers however who say Terry can’t write his way out of a wet paper bag.
No story can be perfect, as such a thing cannot exist, not objectively, and to try to aim for that by polishing things to death is, in my opinion, one tedious way to spend what precious time we have. Not to mention all the stories not being written in the meantime.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Matt. What always chaps my butt is how those who say “It isn’t about speed” think “speed” (which is actually just spending time in the chair and not rewriting) somehow equals lower quality. I personally won’t bother buying a book written by anyone who writes, revises, seeks critical input, rewrites, etc. I have zero chance of reading the authentic story, so I won’t waste my time.