In Today’s Journal
* First Day of October
* Characters
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
First Day of October
Today’s the first day of October and, maybe more significantly for goal-oriented writers, the first day of the final quarter of the calendar year.
I hope you’ve already revisited and reset your goals if necessary. And if you haven’t, it’s never too late.
I also hope this will be a great month for all of us. My own September was dismal with only 44,000 words of fiction. I’d like to at least double that for October, but we’ll see.
Characters
That said, Blackwell Ops 48 is coming along nicely now that I’ve gotten into a rhythm with this character’s way of doing things and his new, comparatively more hectic schedule.
In the writing, I have about as little time for resting as he has in practicing his profession.
But discovering new characters on my doorstep when they come to me with their stories and learning about them as the stories develop never ceases to be interesting to me.
It’s also relaxing in a way. I don’t create them or force them into existence, so I’m not responsible for them. I’m only responsible for presenting their stories in the best way I can.
I’m endlessly grateful that I don’t construct characters, that I let them simply be who they are. Then I get to watch them grow and develop right in front of me as the story unfolds.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I wrote almost 10% of my complete fiction output for September yesterday.
Then right at the end, I realized it was the last day of the month and I had to rush around to get my spreadsheet set up for October.
Good links in Of Interest today, by the way. Not all about writing, but then everything’s about writing.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
He came and rearranged our molecules Some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. Does the description matter? Or would it be better if he’d left that to the reader’s imagination?
Plate Tectonics and a great deal more The web version of a newsletter. I hope you can view it.
The Pros and Cons of Writing for Anthologies
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 370
Writing of Blackwell Ops 48: Razor Sharpe
Day 1…… 2213 words. To date…… 2213
Day 2…… 1210 words. To date…… 3423
Day 3…… 1318 words. To date…… 4741
Day 4…… 2481 words. To date…… 7222
Day 5…… 1588 words. To date…… 8810
Day 6…… 2215 words. To date…… 11025
Day 7…… 4168 words. To date…… 15193
Fiction for October………………… XXXX
Fiction for 2025…………………….. 578583
Nonfiction for October.…………… 23860
Nonfiction for 2025………………… 210480
2025 consumable words………….. 781449
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 14
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 118
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 302
Short story collections……………………. 29