In Today’s Journal
* My Quote of the Day
* Follow Up, and WITD
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
My Quote of the Day
“In ‘whatever works,’ be sure you define ‘works.’ Don’t do yourself the disservice of letting the word lie there limply as a vague, indefinite term that means nothing.” Harvey
Follow Up, and WITD
a last big push for writing into the dark
In yesterday’s post, I rebutted some pretty severe misinformation. At TNDJ, I don’t only allow dissenting opinions, I actually encourage them. On the other hand, I won’t abide half-truths and misinformation.
So in yesterday’s post, I actually presented the blog post that presented the dissenting opinion myself so I could personally debunk it.
I so zealously defend WITD because it seems to threaten literally everyone who isn’t bold enough to try it, yet it should threaten nobody.
WITD is only a suggestion: a user friendly, cleaner, freer way to write fiction. It isn’t even ‘another’ process so much as it is a letting go of process.
WITD is pure, and it’s a massive timesaver. Instead of hovering over conscious-mind revision and critical opinions from members of a critique group and conscious-mind rewrites, we who WITD simply publish and move on to write the next story or novel.
That’s why WITD is so much fun. During our writing time, we’re actually writing.
In other words, while the ‘plodders’ out there are doing all that non-productive, non-writing stuff, we’re putting new words on the page—practicing—and actually improving our craft.
WITD is a way to step into the characters’ world and run through the story with the characters as the story is unfolding. It’s a way to observe and convey that authentic story as it’s happening without influencing the story. That’s it. Nothing more.
WITD isn’t a set of rules. It doesn’t control you, and you don’t control it. You just write. Doesn’t that sound refreshing?
Still, I was (maybe) a little unfair in my rebuttal yesterday. After all, those who bash WITD and provide wildly false information about it do so because they literally know nothing about it. Simply being ignorant of something is not a reason to attack it.
Instead of trying WITD for themselves to see whether it works, detractors prefer to cling to the myths and repeat the same nonsense they read on other blogs or ‘writer boards’. (I still don’t know what those are.)
Or they repeat the nonsense they read in nonfiction how-to books by ‘famous’ authors who allegedly follow the myths themselves AND, of course, offer myth-based nonfiction books on writing to encourage you to do the same.
It’s always much easier and less labor-intensive to run something down than to simply try it for yourself.
Every myth is both a product OF the conscious, critical mind and encourages the USE of the conscious, critical mind in creative endeavors. Ridiculous.
And every myth is based on unreasoning fears:
- the fear that you (and/or your story) aren’t ‘good enough,’
- or that someone else won’t like what you’ve written,
- or that you won’t make money unless you write (and sound) like someone else,
- or any of numerous other unreasoning, strictly imaginary fears.
Folks, Nothing Bad will happen to you as a result of writing something that you think sucks. Plus, some readers out there will actually like it.
If any of this gets through to you, good. But if it doesn’t, that’s okay too.
No matter how you choose to write, you don’t need my permission or anyone else’s: You should write in whatever way you’re comfortable writing. So ‘whatever works for you.’
But when I say “Whatever works for you is fine,” I actually mean it. I add only one caution: In “whatever works,” be sure you define “works.”
Don’t do yourself the disservice of letting the word lie there limply as a vague, indefinite term that means nothing. I suggest you make it define your production. Because if whatever you’re doing doesn’t enhance your production of fiction, then it doesn’t actually work at all.
What most enhances your production and your growth in skill as a fiction writer and therefore your discoverability and salability is practice, and practice means putting new words on the page.
And whatever else it is, any time you spend outlining and revising and discussing your story with critique groups and rewriting and waiting for an editor’s comments is NOT time during which you’re putting new words on the page.
You COULD spend that time actually practicing your craft instead—how you spend your time is strictly and completely up to you—but the vast majority of writers spend it doing all that nonsense in the paragraph above.
Heinlein’s Business Habits for Writers (Heinlein’s Rules) are
- You must write.
- You must finish.
- You must not rewrite except to editorial order (and Harlan Ellison added “and then only if you agree”).
- You must put your work on the market.
- You must keep it on the market until it sells.
Any idea which rule knocks more would-be writers out of our profession than any other?
Rule 1.
Why?
Because by the time would-be plotters outline a novel, they know the whole story. So many of them hit a wall. Because why bother writing a story you already know?
Or because they’re overwhelmed with all the steps everyone says they ‘have’ to follow. Like all of us, they’ve been told they have to
- outline,
- character sketch,
- world build,
- [here, let me squeeze ‘write’ in here],
- revise,
- seek critical input,
- rewrite,
- seek editing,
- maybe rewrite again and maybe another time or two or twenty and then—finally—
- submit or publish.
So they throw up their hands and give up. Anybody else been there? I have.
And sadly, most of them never get a chance to hear that there’s a better way. That they don’t have to do all that silly stuff. That all they have to do is believe in themselves and trust their characters and write what happens in the story and how the characters react.
Also most of them never get a chance to hear me or Bradbury or King or Dean Wesley Smith or other proponents of WITD say “It really is just that easy.”
Of course, as there are with most things, there’s one caveat to WITD. It CAN be that easy, but it isn’t always.
Everything depends on you, the individual writer. Once you try WITD and see for yourself that it works, the battle is only beginning.
You’ll still have to constantly guard against your conscious, critical mind butting in. It’s always trying to barge in, always trying to create doubt where there should be only certainty and belief in yourself.
All you can do is catch it, tell it to leave you alone, and go back to putting new words on the page. That’s a battle you must largely wage on your own.
But beyond that one caveat, yes, WITD really is that easy.
And I’ll say it again: I’m not able to write into the dark because I’ve written so much. I’ve written so much because I write into the dark.
Stay tuned. Tomorrow, maybe a new challenge for you and “A Change Is Coming.” Talk with you then.
Of Interest
Busy Writers: When Does “So Much” Become “Too Much?”
5 Book Ad Design Tools for Authors
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 1220
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 1220
Writing of Blackwell Ops 53: Jack Striker | The Next Level
Day 1…… 2035 words. To date………… 2035
Day 2…… 2217 words. To date………… 4252
Day 3…… 3751 words. To date………… 8003
Day 4…… 2218 words. To date………… 10221
Day 5…… 2181 words. To date………… 12402
Day 6…… 1673 words. To date………… 14075
Day 7…… 1972 words. To date………… 16047
Day 8…… 2081 words. To date………… 18128
Day 9…… 2694 words. To date………… 20822
Day 10…. 2712 words. To date………… 23534
Day 11…. 1581 words. To date………… 25115
Fiction for December……………………… 25115
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 779762
Nonfiction for December.………………… 21840
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 286970
2025 consumable words………………… 1059163
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 122
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29