In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Welcome
* Monique from Atticus, and Goals
* You Tube, Take Two
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” TS Eliot
“I think the secret is to not over think the process, and daily word counts are king. It ensures you always have consistent word production.” Christopher Ridge
Welcome
Welcome to Charles C, Jeff A, and any other new readers or subscribers of the Journal. I hope you will find it useful.
Get the Archives and other free downloads at the Journal website. Just click the links and a PDF will download in a new page.
If you download the Journal Archives, I suggest downloading and reading the most recent one first. Then, if you’re bored enough to want to see how I personally progressed as a fiction writer, you can go back and download the others. It has been an interesting journey.
I also recommend reading the posts “I Believe in You” and “Fear”. Can’t hurt, and it might help.
Monique from Atticus, and Goals
Yesterday I received a nice email from Monique at Atticus. The real purpose of her message was to invite me to register for a webinar titled “Scale Your Writing Business in 2024 with 3 Key Steps.” And that’s fine. I did register.
But the webinar was scheduled for only 40 minutes away, and I’m trying to write. Still, they’re supposed to send a link to the video later. If they do, I’ll share it with you here in the Journal (unless I’m not allowed to do so). I doubt they would mind me sharing since doing so might drum up a little more business for them.
I won’t vet the video(s) first, though, so what you get is what you get. I don’t want my opinion to interfere with what might or might not work for you with regard to your business.
Anyway, just in case Monique drops by (Hi, Monique!), I wanted to thank her publicly for all the good stuff they do over at Atticus to help writers.
Anyway, Monique also invited me (and everyone else who received the email) to share their goals for 2024.
I was happy to do so. I actually copied and pasted them directly from my post “2023 in Review, and Goals”, where I listed them more succinctly than I had earlier.
So I’ve already done my good deed for the year. I’ve given everyone at Atticus a “crazy man” to talk about. (grin)
Thing is, chances are good I’ll make my goals. And if anyone asks later (they won’t, because no way can I do that) and I tell them, that will be two good deeds. Then they can all sit around and talk about how terrible my fiction must be (sight unseen, of course) because I wrote it so “fast.” (grin)
There will be no talk, I’m sure, of “work ethic” or any such thing. What a very, very strange world we live in.
Update: I received a nice email back from Monique:
“This is amazing! Congratulations on everything you’ve already accomplished. I’d wish you luck on this year’s goals, but it seems you’ve got this down to a science, so luck is just superfluous at this point! … I wish you all the best with your prolific goals!”
You Tube, Take Two
I think I’m gonna try going “live” on YouTube again to talk writing. I would love for it to be an interactive show, though.
In other words, I’d like you to view it live, ask questions, and so on. I think that would be a great show.
To that end, I’ll work out a schedule and (of course) announce each broadcast in the Journal in advance.
I’m probably looking at once a week, proably on Sunday afternoon when most folks are a) not at work and b) not in church and c) sitting around the house to rest up from the weekend before heading back to work on Monday morning.
So each Sunday I would either meet my daily goal early, or I’ll just have to miss the goal that day. Totally worth it if this works the way I’d like it to.
Of course, you can always contribute to the cause by clicking the donation button at the end of any Journal post. Or not.
No, the first broadcast will NOT be this coming Sunday. A week, maybe two.
And No, there will be no charge. The broadcast will be completely free.
Whatever time I post will be Arizona time. We do not change time. Everyone should be so lucky.
Anyway, the broadcast—You can even bring a friend, but only if they’re thinking of subscribing to the Journal. (Kidding. Bring anyone you like, including screaming babies. I like babies. Just do your best, y’know?)
Anyway, if any of you have any thoughts on this idea, I would love to hear from you. Just shoot me an email at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
Y gracias de antemano por tu aporte.
(And thank you in advance for your input.)
The Writing
Welp, I got “stuck” for a little while, mostly because I was tired. So as not to waste my time staring at the screen, I cycled back through the entire manuscript again.
If you ever feel like the words won’t come when you try to Just Write the Next Sentence, try cycling back to get yourself back into the story.
With this novel (every one of them writes differently) the POV character didn’t let me know her personality, her outlook on life, until around 18,000 words into the story. I think that’s why it was unfolding so slowly there for awhile.
So at about 20000 words, I trudged up to the house to tell my wife that today (yesterday now) would probably be another long one. I intend to make my daily goal today. Only about 2000 words to go. (grin)
Update: Made it. (grin)
I’ll talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Episode 872: Get Your Rights Back, Get Back on the Lists: Part II
Slow Start With The Writing See? It happens to DWS too.
662 million digital books were borrowed in 2023, up 19%…. Yet one more reason tu use Draft2Digital and go wide. Be sure to see PG’s take.
Microsoft is adding an AI button… Again, see PG’s take.
Complex, unfamiliar sentences make the brain’s language network work harder Here’s to writing original thoughts.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1080
Writing of Blackwell Ops 17: Julia Saenz
Day 1…… 4204 words. To date…… 4204
Day 2…… 4284 words. To date…… 8488
Day 3…… 3355 words. To date…… 11843
Day 4…… 1623 words. To date…… 13466
Day 5…… 1284 words. To date…… 14750
Day 6…… 4065 words. To date…… 18815
Day 7…… 4083 words. To date…… 22898
Fiction for January……………………. 11055
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 11055
Fiction since October 1…………… 314112
Nonfiction for January……………… 5140
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 5140
2024 consumable words…………… 16195
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 0
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 82
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 238
Short story collections…………………… 31
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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.