The Daily Journal, Tuesday, June 18

In today’s Journal

* Camping along the Gila
* Announcement from Draft2Digital
* Stuff is stacking up
* Daily diary
* Of Interest
* The numbers

Here’s one of the reasons I return to the Gila Lower Box Wilderness when I want to go camping. This cliff is simply magnificent. Like the Grand Canyon, no photo can do it justice.

And because this is true wilderness, the area is filled with the extremes of weather and light.

The cliff itself changes color through the day. Toward sunset, for a few minutes, it looks like a cliff of pure gold.

If you want to see a larger view of the image, right click on the image and select View Image.

More tomorrow.
***

From Draft2Digital (D2D)

On Thursday, June 27th, join D2D’s own Marketing Masterminds—Kevin Tumlinson, Mark Lefebvre, and Dan Wood—as they answer your questions live and on-air during our first official Ask Us Anything!

Note: this is a FREE event. To register, Click Here.

We’ll also be taking questions live during the webinar. And we’ll record the whole thing and make it available to you for free after the event. So even if you can’t make it to the recording, you’ll still get all the valuable, free author consulting.

We hope you’ll invite all of the authors (and will-be authors) in your life to join in.
***

Whoof. Stuff is stacking up.

I have a novel going, though at the moment the characters are sticking to One Major Event so it might end up being a novelette or novella. (At the core, the only difference between a short story and a novel is that the short story is about One Event.)

Fun going where the characters lead me though. It’s their story, so I’m just a hanger-on.

When the idea first occurred I was certain it would be a novel, albeit probably a short one given the genre.

But what should have been a secondary character on the first page quickly turned into a much more major character. And that was a decision made by my main character. The main character is a (very) alpha male and the secondary character is a (very) alpha female and it turned out they like each other. A lot. So….

Then I haven’t forgotten about my last nonfiction book: How to Quiet the Critical Voice. I still need to put that together, do a promo doc and cover, and publish it.

And I have all the Las Vegas Expo Learn Along videos (plus the Magic Bakery videos) to view and listen to. (Still time to jump into that if you want to. It’s still a steal at only $200.)

And I have a magazine of my own writing to put together. Each issue will be a compilation of one novel from my backlist, 3-5 short stories, a few poems, and an article. I’m still thinking about writing one new (unpublished) short story or novelette (long short story) for each issue too.

Oh, and my last novel, In the Cantina at Noon, is due back soon from my first readers. So I’ll need to create a promo doc and cover for that and get it out too.

Then there’s publicity to be done for the Critical Voice book and the magazine and the novel. And a Daily Journal to publish and try to keep interesting.

And lord only knows what I’ll come up with today or tomorrow or in the next five minutes. (grin)

So I’m gonna try again to split my day, writing on my WIP earlier to get my daily word count and then devoting more of the day to one or more of the projects above.

Sigh. It ain’t easy bein’ me. But it sure is fun. (grin)

Topic: On Sales Gimmicks

Some people will say anything to make a buck, and frankly, I despise liars.

Maybe that’s why I latched on so tightly to Dean Wesley Smith when I found him. The guy’s honest. He’s even advised me before on which of his online workshops I shouldn’t take because my writing is beyond what he teaches in them.

Today I received an email from a blog I subscribe to because occasionally they slip and pass out good advice.

The email read in part,

Hey Harvey,

I want to help you finish your book no matter what.

That’s why I’ve just opened up a few slots for the introductory class of the No-Fail Novel Outlining course. This will be the only novel outlining system that will make it almost impossible for you to fail at writing your book. (emphasis added)

I have a feeling the “almost” in that paragraph is what keeps these folks from being sued.

In actuality, while you’re writing the outline, you’re already failing at writing your book. ‘Cause you aren’t writing your book. You’re writing a stupid outline. Duh.

And no, I didn’t email him back to point out that “outlining” is not synonymous with “writing your book.” In fact, it’s synonymous with not writing your book. It’s synonymous with “writing your outline.”

But wait. There’s more. (grin)

One of the bullet points in the email read, “Whether you’re a planner or a pantser, make your book writing easier and more fun.” Seriously? Obviously he’s never experienced the joy of writing off into the dark and letting the characters tell their own story.

And on the website, the first two sentences in the sales pitch were

How do you become a professional writer?
To be great at something, you need to practice.

Like I said, every now and then they get something right. Unfortunately in this case, they don’t have a clue what “practice” actually means.

But what really set me of was that this was a bait-and-switch email. A link in the email read, “You can get all the details about the course here.”

When I clicked the link (mostly to find out how much they’re scamming folks out of) it took me to the sales page I mentioned above. And it wasn’t a sales page for the course they’re hawking. It was a sales page that invited you to “join the community” for only $15 or $25 PER MONTH.

And yeah, after this experience I unsubscribed. To me, finding the occasional gem isn’t worth putting up with liars and con artists. Screw ’em. And I don’t mean that in a nice way.
***

Rolled out at 2:30. Looked around the internet. I found little of interest that wasn’t either regurgitation of the same old stuff or insanely harmful to the writing process. Or both. So I went to the WIP and started cycling through what I wrote yesterday.

I’m gonna stop detailing my writing sessions, breaks and the other minor stuff in the Journal. It takes too much time and it even bores me.

I wrote quite a bit today, but decided to call it a little early so I can concentrate on some of the “business” things I listed above. Unless my characters throw me a curve, it still feels like this WIP is going to wrap as a novelette or maybe a novella. Maybe as early as tomorrow or the next day.

Talk with you again tomorrow.

Of Interest

See “Writing Got Me Behind” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/writing-got-me-behind/. I’m so blessed. I get annoyed when I can’t write for a few days. Imagine your routine being disrupted for months on end.

Fiction Words: 2540
Nonfiction Words: 1160 (Journal)
Total words for the day: 3700

Writing of Sam Loredo and the Point of No Return (we’ll see)

Day 1…… 2803 words. Total words to date…… 2803
Day 2…… 1035 words. Total words to date…… 3838
Day 3…… 4247 words. Total words to date…… 8085
Day 4…… 2540 words. Total words to date…… 10625

Total fiction words for the month……… 37969
Total fiction words for the year………… 344074
Total nonfiction words for the month… 19280
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 174840
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 518914

Calendar Year 2019 Novels to Date…………………… 7
Calendar Year 2019 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2019 Short Stories to Date… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 44
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 7
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 194
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

2 thoughts on “The Daily Journal, Tuesday, June 18”

  1. Love the photos! Gila is one of my favorite places in the world. I’m so glad you got to go there.

    • Thanks, Carolyn. My buddy and I were fortunate to be there when a massive storm hit one weekend. A deluge of rain, high winds and even some hail. When it was over millions of gallons of water poured into the Gila in ever direction in magnificent 500-foot waterfalls. One of my favorite memories of all times.

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