In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Giant Panda Story
* A New Novel
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.” Carl Sagan
“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.” Harvey Mackay
Giant Panda Story
“The Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC, bid farewell yesterday to three giant pandas, who left on a 19-hour plane ride to Chengdu, China, dubbed ‘the Panda Express.’
“The departure of the two adult pandas, 26-year-old Tian Tian and 25-year-old Mei Xiang, and their 3-year-old son, Xiao Qi Ji, marks the end of more than 50 years of giant pandas being hosted at the zoo.” as reported in 1440 Daily Digest.
There you go. A story idea fresh from the news. Every edition of this thing is chock full of story ideas, and best of all, no political biases.
A story is fiction.
Were the pandas regular passengers, strapped into seats? Perhaps First Class?
What was their reaction as they were strapped in? As the plane started down the runway? As it lifted off? As the plane ascended and air pressure changed (ears popping, etc.)?
The same questions apply if they were put in cages in the hold or in the back of the plane.
A New Novel
I glanced back at Rose Padilla, a novel I started a few months back. It will be the tenth installment of the Wes Crowley gap series and number five in the Santa Fe subseries.
As I read over what little I’d already written, I still liked the idea of it, but something didn’t feel right. Rather than trying to figure it out, I decided to simply delete what I had written earlier (only several thousand words) and recast it from scratch. I like to keep moving forward, not back.
Once I started writing the story, I was so engrossed in it that I almost forgot to file today’s edition of the Journal. (grin) That is as it should be.
As I did with my previous novel, I’ll also post each day’s writing to the Writing in Public substack. So if you’ve ever been interested in checking out the Wes Crowley saga, this would be a perfect opportunity.
(The very first book in the overall saga, Rise of a Warrior, is also available free. Just email me if you’d like a copy. Remember to tell me which eformat you would like.)
I’ll begin reporting numbers on it tomorrow.
Talk with you again soon.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 440
Writing of Rose Padilla (WCG10SF5)
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date…… XXXXX
Fiction for November…………………… 17508
Fiction for 2023………………………… 336152
Fiction since August 1………………… 221592
Nonfiction for November……………… 7750
Nonfiction for the year……………… 235640
Annual consumable words………… 567285
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 7
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 7
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 78
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 235
Short story collections…………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.