Happy Thanksgiving

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Happy Thanksgiving
* It’s All Substack
* The Great Pretender (preview)
* Of Interest

Quotes of the Day

“I’ve brought you something to wear over your dress and I do not want to hear your views on killing animals to provide coats for the wealthy. I have it on the best authority that these ermine committed suicide.” Ann Cristy

“In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and even clothes, the discussion of fur is childish.” Karl Lagerfeld

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Wayne Gretzky

That last one is something to think about while you’re making excuses not to try trusting your characters and writing into the dark. Just sayin’.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving Day tradition today. And don’t forget to get some words down on your current story (or start a new one).

Writing fiction provides a great start to any day, and writing a little on a day like this sends a message to the creative subconscious and your characters just how important they really are to you.

It’s All Substack

Since Subtack can import previous posts (archives) from the Journal website via RSS, I sent them a note to ask whether they could also import and broadcast new posts via RSS.

So for example, I’d write my post per usual at https://hestanbrough.com. Then Substack would pick up that post via my RSS feed (the URL above plus “/feed/” appended after .com) but they said no, they don’t currently have that ability.

I understand, of course, and in retrospect it was a silly question. Substack, like anyone else, is in business to make money. They do that by taking a percentage of the income substack writers earn from their paid newsletters.

No big deal. It’s only one more step—maybe another five minutes—to copy/paste the Journal from hestanbrough.com to harveystanbrough.substack.com/.

So you’ll still continue to receive the Journal in your email inbox, albeit the stripped-down version from Substack, or you can follow the Journal at it’s home on hestanbrough.com.

The Great Pretender—a truly great song but a truly lousy professional. Coming soon. I don’t want to go that negative on Thanksgiving day.

For now, here are two points to ponder:

If you’re an aspiring or beginning writer (fewer than 50 or so short stories, fewer than 10 or 12 novels), check to be sure your would-be instructor is much farther along the road of craft than you are.

And if you haven’t published a million words or so of fiction (or if you haven’t bothered to write and publish any at all), you shouldn’t be teaching aspiring or beginning writers how to write fiction. Or grocery lists for that matter.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Thanksgiving Holidays” at https://deanwesleysmith.com/thanksgiving-holidays/. A nice post.

See “Great Dialogue is the Art of the Unsaid” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/great-dialogue-is-the-art-of-the-unsaid/.Right. Then why report dialogue at all? If this is true, let’s go for perfection and leave it all unsaid.

Ugh, I probably shouldn’t have posted that last link but some will find it useful. The title is one of those buzz-phrases, and it’s pure, unadulterated BS. Great dialogue is dialogue that sounds like two or more real people interacting. Period. Writing Realistic Dialogue & Flash Fiction

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 510 words

Writing of The Stirchians (novel, tentative title)

Day 21… 2621 words. Total words to date…… 42178
Day 22… 5133 words. Total words to date…… 47309
Day 23… 1240 words. Total words to date…… 48549
Day 24… 4535 words. Total words to date…… 53084
Day 25… 2867 words. Total words to date…… 55951
Day 26… 3825 words. Total words to date…… 59776
Day 27… 2710 words. Total words to date…… 62486

Total fiction words for November……… 36377
Total fiction words for the year………… 197902
Total nonfiction words for November… 16890
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 192520
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 390422

Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2022 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2022 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 68
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: Because It Makes Sense, I preach trusting your characters to tell the story that they, not you, are living. Duh. This practice greatly increases your productivity and provides the fastest possible ascension along the learning curve of Craft because you get a great deal more practice at actually writing. This is not opinion. It is all numbers and facts.