In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Newsletters and Fiction
* The Writing
* Of Interest
Quotes of the Day
“The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” Thomas J. Watson
“Dare to be bad.” Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.” Billie Holiday
“I have not failed, but found 1000 ways to not make a light bulb.” Thomas Edison
“To be ignorant of situations I can do nothing about is a blessing, not a curse.” Moi
Newsletters and Fiction
I don’t watch or listen to local or national news on television, radio or computer because I want actual fact-based news (this happened), not someone’s slanted version of it (this happened because blah blah blah).
In that pursuit, at present I read two newsletters each morning, one bearing general news (1440 Daily Digest, no political slant) and one bearing science news, specifically Interesting Engineering’s The Blueprint (slanted, but not as severely as most these days).
But reading even those is depressing because the focus is so often on how we are “progressing” socially and scientifically. And I am amazed, but strictly in an “Are you freakin’ kidding me?” kind of way.
Right there in my newsletters, reported as casually as Uncle Billy finding his socks, billionaires routinely fling thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars hither and yon in their far-too-public tugs of war over space tourism and artificial intelligence. And in the sports section, grown da*n men sign contracts for 7-figure salaries to play one children’s game or another.
And yes, cliché as it sounds, all the while millions of citizens in the United States go without food, shelter, and even clean water, from our largest inner cities to the hidden valleys of Appalacia. All of that as we “advance” socially, or at least appear to. Folks, to hijack an old saying, the appearance of the thing is not the thing. But whatever we have to tell ourselves.
Now to what I set out to write about (that other stuff just kind’a tagged along)—as we “advance” our understanding of science and the world around us, we have literally sucked the magic out of practically every aspect of life.
We can’t just marvel at the beauty of a rainbow; we have to have an algorithm to prove precisely which way light bends at particular angles to project those colors and then make absolutely sure everybody knows it. See little boy? Heh heh. It isn’t magic at all.
I used to believe that no two snowflakes were alike because that was the common wisdom and because every time it snowed I raced outside to check, my palms upturned. That belief carried magic. Now, according to an article I read recently in one of the two newsletters I mentioned above, scientists have (somehow) proven absolutely that no two snowflakes are alike. Hurrah! Now there’s a truly important breakthrough! And while we’re at it, don’t eat snow off the ground or off fenceposts. It’s bad for you.
How does any of that help anyone? Seriously. Maybe you’ll forgive me if I preferred the belief about snowflakes and the minuscule margin of uncertainty that accompanied it. The possibility, however small, that someday, as two snowflakes were melting on my upturned palm, I might actually see a perfectly matched pair even if nobody else ever did.
Without magic, life is nothing more than breathing-in, breathing-out, when can I go back to sleep, and okay-fine what do we do next in our plodding existence.
But there is hope. Pretty much the only real magic that remains is the product of what goes on between you and your creative subconscious. The stories that emerge from that place are nothing short of sheer, innocent magic.
They are glimpses of a world and characters who might or might not exist in any reality, but who are as real to you and your readers as the other human beings in your life.
That’s because, thus far, nobody is allowed to openly, blatantly program us, at least not outside of the classroom. Still, we are bombarded every day both blatantly and subliminally from every direction and in every form of media to what others want us to believe about literally every facet of our lives and the lives of others.
Short of moving alone to a cave there is nothing you can do to stop the influx. But you can mitigate it with your very own mind.
- When you read or hear things, Think. Don’t go for the low-hanging fruit. C’mon, you’re not a robot. Human beings are far too complex for any situation they’re involved in to be as simple and one-sided as those situations are typically presented by their enemies.
- And when you sit down to draw back the curtain on your characters in their world, do the exact opposite: Don’t Think. Open your mind to the coming new adventures. Enjoy the excitement and exhilaration of the unknown.
Roll off the parapet into the trenches of the story, whip out your notepad or keyboard, and write down what happens as you and your characters race through the story together.
You have all the time in that world, so take your time. Pay attention and go deep. Weave a tapestry that will pull your readers into the story with you.
Make some magic. They will thank you for it.
The Writing
Thank Whomever for the escape of it.
I wrote probably 5000 words yesterday (stuck on a chapter so I kept recasting it and recasting it) but I only counted what I had kept when the smoke cleared, around 1100 words. Now the story should be able to move ahead smoothly.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Last Day of the Sale” at https://deanwesleysmith.com/last-day-of-the-sale-2/. This is the main reason I bothered posting today, just in case you need it.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 980
Writing of Wes Crowley: Deputy US Marshal 2 (WCG9SF4)
Day 1…… 3231 words. Total words to date…… 3231
Day 2…… 2990 words. Total words to date…… 6221
Day 3…… 1805 words. Total words to date…… 8026
Day 4…… 2025 words. Total words to date…… 10051
Day 5…… 1451 words. Total words to date…… 11502
Day 6…… 1886 words. Total words to date…… 13388
Day 7…… 2002 words. Total words to date…… 15390
Day 8…… 1060 words. Total words to date…… 16450
Day 9…… 1903 words. Total words to date…… 18353
Day 10… 1143 words. Total words to date…… 19496
Total fiction words for April……… 6689
Total fiction words for 2023………… 72877
Total nonfiction words for April… 5320
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 67580
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 140457
Calendar Year 2023 Novels to Date…………………… 1
Calendar Year 2023 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2023 Short Stories to Date… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 72
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 221
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: I don’t care how you write, only that you do. However, I am a prolific professional writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark, adherence to Heinlein’s Rules, and that following the myths of fiction writing will slow your progresss as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.