In Today’s Journal
* Happy Birthday, USMC
* The Novel Wrapped
* Forgetfulness—Blessing or Curse?
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Happy Birthday, USMC
Later today I will pause briefly to raise a toast to my brothers and sisters in the Marine Corps and in the other armed forces, past and present. Today is the 249th anniversary of the birth of the United States Marine Corps in Tun Tavern (yep, a bar, go figure) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And to everyone else, really:
May your days be vibrant,
your evenings calm,
your heart safe and warm at home.
Semper Fi
My favorite Marine Corps joke—
A man came into Tun Tavern for a beer.
The bartender, Samuel Nicolas, was polishing mugs behind the bar. He looked up. “Tell you what. Sign up for the newly commissioned Marine Corps and the first one’s on the house.”
Of course, the man signed up and carried his beer to a table.
Minutes later, a second man came into the tavern, and Nicolas told him about the newly formed Marine Corps. “If you sign up, your beer is free.”
The man said, “I’ll just pay for it myself.”
“How about two free beers?”
The man signed up.
As the second man approached the table with a mug in each hand, the first man looked up. “Hey now, where’d you get the two beers?”
“I just joined the Marine Corps.” He hefted the mugs. “These are my bonus.”
The first man took a drink of his, set the mug on the table, and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Y’know, back in the Old Corps, we only got one.”
The Novel Wrapped
The 30th novel in the Blackwell Ops series—BO-30: John Quick Returns—wrapped with a little under 3000 words, but with enough words for me to keep my head above water with my average words per day for the month (3058).
Today I’ll write my story for this week’s Bradbury Challenge report.
Here’s a new take on a blast from the past, originally published in April 2021.
Forgetfulness: Blessing or Curse?
The ability to forget, or maybe the inability to remember, is a benefit. It’s also an important aspect of being a professional fiction writer.
You can’t hold an entire novel in your head while you’re writing it.
Note: This is why writers who doubt themselves and their characters outline. It is also why I force myself (yes, every single time) to trust my characters, buckle my seat belt, and write off into the dark.
It naturally follows that you can’t hold something you’ve already written and published in your head either. And really, why would anyone want to?
Of course I remember certain characters or scenes that stand out, but I can’t remember any of my short stories or novels in whole.
But forgetfulness isn’t something a writer can (or wants to) develop so much as something that just happens.
In my humble opinion, if you can remember in any detail what your previous short story or novel was about, you probably aren’t writing enough stories or novels.
Part of this is a mindset: to always look forward, not back. And part of it is the ability and desire to practice putting new words on the page, to keep moving forward and not back.
Of the novel I just finished, my first reader wrote, “What strikes me most about this latest novel is how convincingly it demonstrates that putting new words on the page is how one gets better at putting new words on the page.
“I’ve read all of the novels in your Blackwell Ops series, of course, and even the earliest of them was magnificent, but each and every one that has followed since then, including this one, has somehow been even better than the one before.” (Thanks, Russ.)
Of course, part of that goes to Heinlein’s Rule 3: You must not rewrite except to editorial order (and then only if you agree).
But part of it also goes to HR 1: You must write.
If you’re living with your characters in your current story, or if you’re anticipating your characters in the next story, chances are you won’t remember in any detail the scenes you wrote yesterday, much less the short story or novel you wrote previously.
Of even the novel I finished yesterday, I remember the overall “big” personal conflict and resolution, but almost all the details of the novel are foggy at best.
I’m always stymied when a reader emails me to ask what I “meant” with a particular passage or ending. Before I can respond (and I always personally respond), I have to go back and read the passage or ending.
In the case of the latter (because endings don’t exist in a vacuum), I most often have to read the entire short story again, or I have to read the reverse outline and the last few chapters or scenes of the novel.
I admit reading my own work is usually a pleasurable experience for me, other than spotting errors or things I could have done better. But even then I get a little twinge of nausea because in those moments I’m looking back instead of forward.
Then again, that same forgetfulness is why keeping the characters and facts straight from novel to novel (or story to story) is so difficult when writing a series.
Reverse outlines help a lot, but in a series with recurring characters (and in which those characters are developing), it can still be a challenge.
(Note: For a great deal about “reverse outlines” visit the Journal Website and key that phrase into the search box in the sidebar.)
So with every new novel I write in a series, yes, I refer back to the reverse outlines from earlier novels, but I often find myself having to bring up the original Word document and use the Find feature to locate specific characters or other details.
So I suppose in that way forgetfulness is a curse rather than a blessing. But on the whole, I’d rather forget and have to scroll back to refresh and update my memory than to have all that weird stuff jumbled up inside my head.
On the up side, looking back and seeing little or nothing is a great catalys for moving forward and writing the next story or novel.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: “Learning From Failure” (Be forewarned: This post is heavy on politics. A gentle reminder that I do not always agree with items to which I post links in Of Interest.)
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1070
Writing of Blackwell Ops 30: John Quick Returns
Day 1…… 2155 words. To date…… 2155
Day 2…… 3930 words. To date……. 6085
Day 3…… 3042 words. To date……. 9127
Day 4…… 3057 words. To date……. 12184
Day 5…… 5268 words. To date……. 17452
Day 6…… 1500 words. To date……. 18952
Day 7…… 3194 words. To date……. 22146
Day 8…… 3236 words. To date……. 25382
Day 9…… 3005 words. To date……. 28387
Day 10…. 3742 words. To date……. 32129
Day 11…. 4609 words. To date……. 36738
Day 12…. 2965 words. To date……. 39703 (done)
Fiction for November…………………. 27519
Fiction for 2024………………………… 864651
Nonfiction for November……………… 9140
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 343560
2024 consumable words…………….. 1032250
Average Fiction WPD (November)…… 3058
2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 16
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..…… 98
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………… 255
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.
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