In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* One Writer’s Take on the Bradbury Challenge
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“No rules re grammar, punctuation, syntax, etc. really matter. You know, unless you actually WANT the greater number of readers to understand what you’ve written and take from it what you want them to take from it. In that case, you must learn the rules, not so you won’t break them, but so you can break them intelligently and intentionally to create a certain effect in the reader.” Me in a comment on a Kill Zone post
“PG says social media requires work and some native talent, but is it that difficult to follow book influencers for a while to learn what works and what doesn’t?” The Passive Guy commenting after a post on The Passive Voice
One Writer’s Take on the Bradbury Challenge
I was going to wait and post this on Monday along with this week’s results from the Bradbury Challenge participants themselves, but I thought better of it.
Reading it today might lead a new or returning participant to jump into the Challenge, and that would certainly be a win-win for both the writer and we who would be inspired by that writer. So here goes.
A writer friend of mine recently finished a novel that she’s revisited off and on for several months, interrupted by other things. She shared with me her process regarding making a final pass over the novel, and I reminded her gently to be careful not to let her critical mind slip in and hijack what her creative subconscious gave her.
Below, with her permission, I’m reporting her gracious and valuable response:
“That’s always the challenge—keep critical mind away. I appreciate the reminder and am always reminding myself. Well, not always. When I’m writing purely from creativity, there’s no room for critical mind and the story just flows and I sometimes have a hard time just keeping up with it.
“I’m so glad I jumped on your short story challenge. Eighteen stories in, I haven’t yet consistently written more on my novels, some weeks yes, some no. But part of that is where I was [with the novel I just finished], trying to knit together parts written at quite different times, and still stay in creative mode.
“But [the Challenge is] a great way to keep writing no matter what is going on around me, when writing on the novel might have been difficult—travel, family issues, other commitments.
“And all those things that might have distracted from a novel, added to ideas I was able to take advantage of with short stories. I’ve been surprised too at the different genres that my stories have been in, some that I never read and have never written before (horror).”
Thanks, KC, for allowing me to share your comments. I’m sure the other participants will concur.
I’ll just mention one more benefit of the Challenge that you alluded to: The more you use your story-idea muscle, the more easily story ideas come to you, and they come from all directions. You only need to trust yourself (and your characters) and write them.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Three links about the modern age” at https://mattpmn.substack[dot]com/p/three-links-about-the-modern-age. A very short post with three links and a brief description of each. Philosophy. Some good reads on this substack.
See “Know the Rules Before You Break Them” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/07/know-the-rules-before-you-break-them.html.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 570
Writing of “Untitled Stern Talbot Mystery”
Day 1…… 190 words. Total words to date…… 190
Writing of “Marvin McTavish Decides”
Day 1…… 326 words. Total words to date…… 326
Day 2…… 346 words. Total words to date…… 672
Writing of “A Midnight Sketch”
Day 1…… 1341 words. Total words to date…… 1341
Writing of Rose Padilla (WCG10SF5)
Day 1…… 4283 words. Total words to date…… 4283
Day 2…… 3963 words. Total words to date…… 8246
Day 3…… 1463 words. Total words to date…… 9709
Day 4…… 2445 words. Total words to date……12154
Total fiction words for July……… 2203
Total fiction words for 2023………… 112225
Total nonfiction words for July… 13150
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 144700
Total words for the year (fiction and nonfiction)…… 256925
Calendar Year 2023 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2023 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2023 Short Stories to Date………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………… 221
Short story collections…………………………………………. 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction 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 progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.