Hey Folks,
Well, Consequences released today. Woohoo! I got an email from Amazon letting me know that, so it released at D2D and Smashwords as well. I’ll upload it to BundleRabbit later today.
Frankly, I’d forgotten what day it was, and at the moment I can’t remember what the story was about, except that it’s in the Nick Spalding series. How’s that for not making a particular book “special”? (grin)
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While I’m rambling, let me recommend Linda Maye Adams’ newsletter again. In it she occasionally drops a real gem. You can sign up by visiting her website at https://lindamayeadams.com/.
Topic: What We Love vs. What We Profess to Love: A Parable
Characters have a great deal to teach us.
A thought struck me this morning as I considered a character, a genderless writer whose once often-professed passion was writing.
The character-writer’s productivity used to bear that out. Now, though, not so much. At first, s/he was turning out new work at an alarming pace.
Then s/he listened to some outside comments and decided to pull down and rework some of the stories s/he’d published. S/he did that while continuing to turn out new stories, albeit a lot fewer new stories.
Understand, the character-writer never said s/he no longer has a passion for storytelling.
But over time his/her actions belied that as s/he eventually turned all efforts toward revising things already written. As a result, over time, writing new stories ground to a near-halt.
Eventually that character-writer surrendered to the conscious, critical mind to the point that s/he hasn’t even re-released the stories that were previously published and that s/he took down to “improve” them.
Personally, as a writer, I can’t imagine a more miserable existence.
The thought that occurred was this: Writing part-time beats writing no-time until it doesn’t. And actually, that applies across the board.
I had to think about that awhile. I believe it means that doing something we profess to love only part-time because we give other things a greater priority is a kind of slow death, a slow but steady march toward not doing what we profess to love at all.
Sadly, I’ve seen that time and again among some really good writers just in the short time I’ve been writing full time (5 years). In that time, I’ve seen some great writers whose works I admired fire up like a Roman Candle. And later, fizzle out and die away to obscurity.
Maybe their priorities simply shifted and what they truly love doing (vs. what they profess to love doing) shifted along with them. So naturally, they aren’t writing as often or as much as they say they want to. Or at all. Of course, that’s fine too.
I learned a long time ago, what doesn’t directly affect my own life span, productivity or income doesn’t matter. (I need to remember that more often.) Still, it makes me a little sad.
As to setting priorities, Ray Bradbury said it best: “I love to write. It’s all I do.”
Of course, he did other things too, but writing was the One Big Thing to which he always returned. That bore out his statement and his passion.
Time is our most valuable asset. And like our priorities, it continues until one day it just doesn’t anymore. I hope you’re spending yours doing exactly what you want to do.
For me personally it’s all very cut and dried. Indecision expressed as warring passions/priorities is the worst possible waste of time.
So for me, there will never be a long, drawn-out decline from writing with passion to writing every now and then to fading into obscurity.
Like ol’ Forest Gump with his running, I’ll keep writing until I figure I’ve written enough, and then I’ll stop. Period.
May that event occur a long way down the road. And frankly, I hope it coincides perfectly with when Time itself runs out.
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Wow. I used a lot of time (almost 3 hours) writing the stuff above, adding a new post to the Pro Writers blog, and reading the stuff in “Of Interest.” I guess my “big” priority is split between writing fiction and chatting with my friends. (grin)
Finally, at 6 a.m., to the novel. But I allowed interruptions. Unnecessary interruptions. A lot of them.
Still, all in all, a fairly decent day.
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I seem to be constantly reinventing myself, or at least how I use the hours in the day.
On a typical morning, I’m up at 2 or 3 and I use the first hour or so to create this Journal. That’s all well and good. It limbers up my fingers and my mind and gets me ready for the writing day. (grin)
But then, I usually check for items of interest, and that often leads me to other things, distractions. I’ll bet you know that drill.
The problem is, although I can write in the afternoon, my best writing hours happen before about 11 a.m.
Now from 2 or 3 a.m. (plus an hour), I have ample time to write. If I start at 3 or 4 a.m. (an hour after I get up), including taking a break about once an hour, there are at least 7 hours left before I get to 11 a.m.
So I should have no trouble turning out half a boatload of words, especially when a story is flowing.
So I’m going to try something new starting tomorrow morning. I’ll do my usual wake-up exercise (writing most of the Journal), then go straight to the novel.
Then I’ll do all the “Of Interest” stuff after the writing day is over.
I know this is mostly for me, but I thought I’d share it here in case it gives any of you some ideas.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Second-Hand Sales” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/second-hand-sales/. This has me rethinking (again) maybe taking my novels to paper.
See “Harlan Ellison” at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2018/06/harlan-ellison.html.
See “Cracking The Big Mystery Behind The Bestseller Lists” at https://killzoneblog.com/2019/01/cracking-the-big-mysterybehind-the-bestseller-lists.html.
See “Keeping track of everything: Series Bible” at https://lindamayeadams.com/2019/01/15/keeping-track-of-everything-series-bible/. You might want to check my followup comment too. (grin)
Not specifically about writing, but see “12 Thrillers and Crime Movies We’re Excited to See in 2019” at https://crimereads.com/12-thrillers-and-crime-movies-we-cant-wait-to-see-in-2019/.
Fiction Words: 3070
Nonfiction Words: 1030 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 4100
Writing of The Case of the Mourning Widow (novel)
Day 1…… 2784 words. Total words to date…… 2784
Day 2…… 3250 words. Total words to date…… 6034
Day 3…… 2507 words. Total words to date…… 8521
Day 4…… 1049 words. Total words to date…… 9570
Day 5…… 2459 words. Total words to date…… 12029
Day 6…… 2723 words. Total words to date…… 14752
Day 7…… 1355 words. Total words to date…… 16107
Day 8…… 3151 words. Total words to date…… 19258
Day 9…… 2803 words. Total words to date…… 22061
Day 10… 3070 words. Total words to date…… 25131
Total fiction words for the month……… 26779
Total fiction words for the year………… 26779
Total nonfiction words for the month… 13590
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 13590
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 40369
Calendar Year 2019 Novels to Date………………………… X
Calenday Year 2019 Novellas to Date…………………… X
Calendar Year 2019 Short Stories to Date……… X
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 37
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 7
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………… 193
Short story collections…………………………………………………… 31