In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Welcome
* The Writing
* One Major Glitch
* Writing in Public
* Reminder
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“Sometimes old times are the best times because the edges have worn off the memories.” Tiffanie Gray
“Usually now a title comes to me on Monday morning (sometimes earlier). Only after I start writing do I find out what the story is about. This week I didn’t know how the title was related to the story until the last couple hundred words. Cool.” KC Riggs
Very cool. (grin)
“You know , those horror stories even smell different, like raw liver. The cowboy story smells like a cedar chest.” Reader and poet Nan Dozier in an email after reading “Avoidance”
“I wrote you once in a mood of rough sarcasm that the technique of fiction had become so highly standardized that one of these days a machine would write novels.” Raymond Chandler, in a 1947 letter to his editor (The Letters of Raymond Chandler)
Welcome
Welcome to Teresa BP and any other new subscribers or readers of the Journal. I hope you will find it useful.
Get the Archives and other free downloads at the Journal website. And I don’t do the ambush thing requiring an email address. Just click the links and a PDF will download in a new page.
If you wanna see my tired old mug, here’s a video where Vin Zandri and I are chatting about writing and a bunch of other stuff.
The Writing
The current novel passed into Short Novel range day before yesterday (25,000 to 44,999 words). I always feel more comfortable after that happens.
That’s when I know the thing is going to be a novel instead of a novella, so after I pass that magic number it’s easier to just let it run ’til it wraps.
Here are the fiction lengths I use to define what I’ve written. I use these mostly to price my work:
To 1999 words Short-short Story
2000 to 7999 Short Story
8000 to 14999 Novelette (Long Short Story)
15,000 to 24,999 Novella
25,000 to 44,999 Short Novel
45,000 to 79,999 Novel
over 80,000 Long Novel
Again, these are the lengths that define my work and help me with price points for licensing them. You do what works for you.
One Major Glitch
There was one major glitch in Friday’s Story of the Week, “Avoidance.” Because I was so deeply engrossed in the story as I wrote it, I didn’t notice it until it was already posted. Thus far, no reader has mentioned it either, I hope for the same reason.
The first few people who email to tell me what that glitch is will win a free book. You may take your pick of the first novel in any of my series, any one-off novel, or any nonfiction book I’ve written.
You can find all of those at StoneThreadPublishing.com.
You can read or re-read the story here. Good luck!
Writing in Public
After the current novel wraps, I’m going to suspend Writing in Public until I start either a one-off novel or novella or a novel in a different series. So if I go right into another Blackwell Ops novel, I won’t post it there.
To remain true to the concept of writing in public, I don’t want to post any previous works there either. But I do want to showcase my writing for readers, so I’ll show them (and you if you’re watching) something in a different vein.
All the Blackwell Ops series have either been short stories (3) or novels (13 when this one wraps). And eacn novel is a series of short stories. The operative lives life, receives an assignment, does the necessary reasearch, makes the hit and the egress. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Each operative is different, and each hit and egress is different, but it still feels a little like I’m in a rut after awhile and I have to take a break from writing them. (grin)
Sites to Visit
Yesterday under “Adios, ‘Of Interest'” I mentioned Vin Zandri and provided a link to his website. That link will lead you to his (almost) daily podcast or VLOG (video blog).
Vin is a great action-adventure, suspense thriller writer and a knowledgeable and personable human being. Here’s a more direct link to his YouTube channel.
If you subscribe now, you won’t miss “one single, solitary, exciting episode of The Writer’s Life.” (grin)
Vin graciously had me on his show awhile back in Episode 815. We’re going to do it again on the Marine Corps’ 248th birthday. I’ll announce it here when it goes live.
Yesterday I also failed to mention Dan Baldwin. Dan’s brain is a little slanted, but his heart’s in the right place. Or it was the last time he whipped out his knife and checked.
If you aren’t following Dan on Facebook you’re missing out on a real treat.
Finally, the day after I dropped “Of Interest” from the Journal, James Scott Bell came up with a jewel all writers should read: The Book Biz is A-Changin’.
Reminder
All of you in the ongoing Bradbury Challenge, be sure to get your numbers in to me by tonight. I’ll check tomorrow morning, of course, but sooner is always better.
Talk with you again soon.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1060
Writing of Blackwell Ops 13: Jenna Crowley
Day 1…… 3815 words. To date……3815
Day 2…… 3116 words. To date…… 6931
Day 3…… 3090 words. To date…… 10021
Day 4…… 4073 words. To date…… 14094
Day 5…… 3447 words. To date…… 17541
Day 6…… 4403 words. To date…… 21944
Day 7…… 3025 words. To date…… 24969
Day 8…… 3199 words. To date…… 28168
Day 9…… 3833 words. To date…… 32001
Fiction for November…………………… 14460
Fiction for 2023………………………… 333104
Fiction since August 1………………… 218557
Nonfiction for November……………… 4700
Nonfiction for the year……………… 232590
Annual consumable words………… 562187
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 6
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 7
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 77
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 235
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.