I Celebrate Beginnings, But I Mourn Endings

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Today or Tomorrow
* Topic: I Celebrate Beginnings, But I Mourn Endings
* Of Interest

Quotes of the Day

“You never learn by turning around and going backwards. Learning in writing is practice, working on the next new story and applying the knowledge your creative voice has gained from the last stories.” Dean Wesley Smith

“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.” Janis Joplin

Today or Tomorrow

Over the past three days, I’ve managed to lose two subscribers. One was with us for only a month. The other, since January of this year. I have to admit, I thought it odd that the second one would hang-in during all those non-writing months and leave now.

Anyway, today or tomorrow I’ll start a new novel. Yesterday, as I wrote in my post, I stopped worrying about when the novel would wrap.

Instead, I let go, trusted my characters, and just wrote what happened. And guess what? The novel wrapped on Day 18. Go figure, eh?

In the numbers today, I included all 18 days in case you want to see the numbers. For example, I fell short of my word-count goal on 4 of those 18 days.

I also had almost 6000 words of cuts. Not counting those, the novel wrapped at just under 53,000 words.

Topic: I Celebrate Beginnings, But I Mourn Endings

I’ve never understood why writers throw a party or have a special meal or otherwise celebrate having finished a novel. I don’t understand why they aren’t grieving.

I don’t celebrate endings of any sort: death, divorce, being evicted from my home, or knowing I might never see a set of characters again.

A couple of days ago in response to a recent post, a long-time friend emailed to say he enjoyed “the sipping of wine on some occasions (like a new book in print).” He added, “Book sales are always brisk at such occasions as well—kind of like a Tupperware party.” He added a smiley face.

Yeah, okay, I get that the actual party is to celebrate an Accomplishment, but that lends the book (and by extension, the Author) a certain Importance, doesn’t it? Isn’t it a bit like a mechanic celebrating having rebuilt a 4-barrel Holley?

But I take his point—I really do—and I’m glad that approach works for him. As I told him in my response, “launch parties are probably fine if you research, plan, (write), revise, seek criticism, rewrite, edit, and polish.”

That’s eight steps to write a novel. But only one step (write) is actually necessary.

But I digress. If you personally find those steps useful, then I can understand how adding one post-writing function probably won’t upset your routine very much. Go for it.

I personally couldn’t do it, but then, that’s just me. I simply write novels one after another after another. So can you imagine planning (or even attending) a book launch party every two or three weeks? Just sayin’.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “I Never Look Back” at https://deanwesleysmith.com/i-never-look-back/. This. Read this.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 510 words

Writing of Carmen Morales

Day 1…… 3007 words. Total words to date…… 3007
Day 2…… 2842 words. Total words to date…… 5849
Day 3…… 3283 words. Total words to date…… 9132
Day 4…… 3106 words. Total words to date…… 12238
Day 5…… 3644 words. Total words to date…… 15882
Day 6…… 3548 words. Total words to date…… 19430
Day 7…… 3076 words. Total words to date…… 22506
Day 8…… 2667 words. Total words to date…… 25173
Day 9…… 3291 words. Total words to date…… 28464
Day 10… 3375 words. Total words to date…… 31839
Day 11… 3350 words. Total words to date…… 35189
Day 12… 3640 words. Total words to date…… 38829
Day 13… 3673 words. Total words to date…… 42502
Day 14… 3604 words. Total words to date…… 46106
Day 15… 4568 words. Total words to date…… 50674
Day 16… 2149 words. Total words to date…… 52823
Day 17… 1421 words. Total words to date…… 54244
Day 18… 4632 words. Total words to date…… 58876 (done)

Total fiction words for October……… 8202
Total fiction words for the year………… 128584
Total nonfiction words for October… 3090
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 156310
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 284894

Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 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: In this Journal, I discuss various aspects of the writing craft. I advocate trusting the characters to tell the story that they, not the writer, are living. This is by far the easiest, most liberating, and most fun way to tell a story.