In today’s Journal
* The Short Story Wrapped
* Preliminary Report on the September Challenge
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
The Short Story Wrapped
The short story that was giving me so much trouble—formerly titled “The Darling Members Club” and now titled “The Story of Darlene and Carolyn”—wrapped yesterday.
It might also be the beginning of another Stern Talbot PI novel, but for now it wrapped. If it runs to a novel later, the novel will probably be under the original title. (No, I don’t know why. No clue yet. That’s just what the character wants the novel to be titled.)
This one was strange. Very strange. Of all the short stories I’ve written, this one was, um, different. Usually the story is by and about the POV character.
This story is by Stern Talbot—he’s the POV character—but it’s about two other characters: a younger woman who’s seemingly from the street and a young middle-aged woman—and Talbot’s love interest—who’s a seemingly graceful, elegant creature.
I can only shake my head. Things are not always what they seem.
Twists and turns, you bet. And frankly, I hope no other character EVER hands me another story like this one. (grin)
Preliminary Report on the September Challenge
First, sincere congratulations to everyone who participated in the challenge. I applaud all of you.
1000 WPD—
Eleven writers took part In the 1000 words per day challenge. The goal was to write 1000 words per day and/or 7000 words per week and/or 30000 words on the month.
One writer fell early. (More on that later.)
Three writers in that challenge exceeded the monthly goal. Two exceeded the weekly goal every week. Othes exceeded the weekly goal in different weeks.
Three writers said their daily average is “only” around 500 wpd. Know what? That isn’t failure. If you write 500 wpd for 365 days, that’s 182,500 words. Not counting all the times you’ll exceed that average. (And if you’re WITD, that’s only about a half-hour’s writing.)
2250 WPD—
Two writers took part in the 2250 wpd challenge. The goal was to write 2250 words per day and/or 15750 words per week and/or 67500 words on the month. One fell only 7000 words short of the monthly goal.
Overall—
Only two writers fell early, one in the 1000 wpd challenge and one in the 2250 wpd challenge. Both, I suspect, were demoralized by a low word count in the first week.
That is a classic critical mind attack. The feeling is “I’ve already failed, so why bother?” Let’s think about that.
When something interrupts your life and what you need or want to do, you still come out the other side and get back to normal, right? You still go to your job, drive to the store for groceries, watch your favorite TV shows or whatever.
Writing is the same thing. If you’re a fiction writer, writing is something you need or want to do. So if something unexpected happens and you fall a little (or a lot) short during a challenge of this kind, don’t let it dissuade you.
Life happens. Stay in the game and keep writing. Most of the writers in the challenge did exactly that.
So in my book, both challenges were a complete success. Every writer who entered wrote a lot more than they would have written otherwise, and that is always a complete win.
And yes, we will do another “community” challenge in the future. Say November? November has only 30 days. (grin) So in the meantime, set a good daily goal for yourself and practice slapping your pen or your laptop around every day.
In My Own Challenge, I “Failed” Miserably
My challenge was 3000 wpd. My total fiction on the month is 84816 words (out of a goal of 90000).
At times like that, I find it valuable to sit back and look at the bigger picture. With those 84816 words I finished a novel, wrote a novella, wrote nine short stories, and started another novel.
More importantly (to me), my average words per day over the 30 days is only 2827 wpd. Yeah, that feels like a failure, but it’s still failing to success, and it doesn’t mean I can or should stop writing.
Again, the bigger picture—At present, for all my shortcomings, over the past ten years I’m averaging nine novels per year, one novella per year, and 25 short stories per year. All because of pursuing a daily word count goal.
And of course, there are still three months left in the year.
And you can do exactly the same thing, or better.
In my own challenge, I only exceeded a 3000 wpd average on the first ten days of the month, and then exceeded it on seven other days.
To me, again, that’s a total win. Now I only have to continue striving to reach my daily goal of 3000 wpd. And I will.
I won’t make it every day, but on days when I don’t, you can bet I’ll have one eye peeled on my average.
Finally, you’ll note I fell short of 1,000,000 words of fiction between Oct 1, 2023 and Sep 30, 2024 with only 865354. Thanks for coming along on the ride. Tomorrow, that line will disappear from the Numbers.
But in this calendar year I still have a shot at writing 1,000,000 words of fiction, With three full months left, I’m at 741,508. Just gotta keep writing. (grin)
Watch this space for my upcoming post on the value of averages and the September Challenge.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
FREE Premium Marketing Content & Bonuses for Authors!
7 Things You Didn’t Know About Winston Churchill I found this interesting and thought some of you might also. For one thing, he was committed to writing 2000 words per day.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 880
Writing of “The Story of Darlene and Carolyn”
Day 1…… 3274 words. To date…… 3274
Day 2…… 0498 words. To date…… 3772
Day 3…… 1130 words. To date…… 4902
Day 4…… 1730 words. To date…… 6632 (done)
Fiction for September…………………….. 84816
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 741508
Fiction since October 1…………………… 865354
Nonfiction for October…………………… 28750
Nonfiction for 2024……………………….. 304520
2024 consumable words…………………. 869317
Average Fiction WPD (September)……… 2827
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 13
2024 Novellas to Date……………………. 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………. 15
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 95
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………. 252
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. You may click the Subscribe or Update button below, or you may click Donate Here and set up a recurring donation of $5 per month OR make a one-time (annual) donation of $60 via PayPal. Thank you!