The Journal: Just Write Something Already

In today’s Journal * An astute reader * On the cigar front * Tidbits * Of Interest * The Numbers ​​​ An astute reader caught an egregious typo in yesterday’s Journal (Thanks, Russ). In the Numbers section, I reported 60031 total words of fiction for the year. Let’s play with that for a moment. That would mean on average in the first 208 days of 2021 I’ve written a rip-roaring 289 words per day. Yeah, somehow I managed to omit a numeral. That number should have read 600381, which it now does. Which means on average, I’ve written 2889 words … Read more

The Journal: More on Ideas, and Introducing Tidbits

In today’s Journal * More on Ideas * Topic: Introducing Tidbits * Of Interest * The Numbers ​​​More on Ideas Excerpted from an email to a potential new mentoring student. In his email he told me he was deluged with story ideas: I’m glad you’re deluged with ideas. I get so tired of would-be writers asking “Where do you get ideas?” My typical response is “Where do you NOT get ideas?” Just this morning during my walk, I passed through several swarms of flying ants. My imagination immediately went to an alien invasion. A little later, as I was eating … Read more