The Journal: A Minor Glitch

In today’s Journal

* For the first time ever
* I hit a minor glitch
* The Numbers

Well, for the first time ever, this morning I came back and deleted a large segment of an original Journal post.

The simple fact is, I’m tired of beating my head against a wall. I don’t care how anyone else writes, I don’t care what sort of fertilizer they’re peddling, and I don’t care who buys it. My job as an instructor or mentor is to pay forward what I’ve learned and to help where I can. I do my best to ignore the rest.

Every writer is different in what and whom they choose to believe, as is their right. So as an act of kindness, I deleted much of my original post.

It’s a simple fact that an outline by any other name is still an outline. That said, if you need or want a safety net, I’m not saying you’re wrong. Hey, whatever works for you. By all means, string it up.

If you are able to trust yourself, your abilities and your characters and just sit down and write the best story you can at your current skill level, I suggest you do that and ignore everything and everyone else. I strongly recommend this formula: Learning + Practice = Improvement.

I personally will never recommend exerting authorial control over character control, or not trusting the characters over trusting the characters. Likewise, I will never recommend attempting to create fiction with the conscious, critical mind instead of with the creative subconscious. And I will never recommend “preparing” to write, no matter what anyone calls it, over actually writing, actually putting new words on the page. To me, obviously, all of this makes rational sense. To others, just as obviously, it does not.

As a final note, I also recommend using reverse outlines to help you keep facts straight as you write your way through your novel or series. In fact, I’ve blogged on reverse outlines before. To find those posts, simply go to https://hestanbrough.com/?s=reverse+outline.

I hit a minor glitch in the novel yesterday, which is to say my creative subconscious dinged me again but this time I was smart enough to pay attention the first time.

To be certain the glitch was resolved, I had to run back through the whole thing to double-check the timeline. As a result, I had a longer day than usual and a much shorter word count. Still, it’s better than no words at all.

And the short story I need to write for Dean’s Shared World was nibbling at the back of my mind all day. I probably would have already written and submitted it if it weren’t for the archaic required format. There, my grumble for the day.

Back at it today.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “The Future Will Be Monthly: Subscription Models for Authors” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-future-will-be-monthly-subscription-models-for-authors/.

See “Branding Redux” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/02/29126.html.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 540 words

Writing of The Journey Home: Part 7 (novel)

Day 1…… 6065 words. Total words to date…… 6065
Day 2…… 3887 words. Total words to date…… 9952
Day 3…… 3170 words. Total words to date…… 13122
Day 4…… 3862 words. Total words to date…… 16984
Day 5…… 3905 words. Total words to date…… 20889
Day 6…… 2845 words. Total words to date…… 23734

Total fiction words for February……… 85536
Total fiction words for the year………… 183013
Total nonfiction words for February… 16270
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 41600
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 224613

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 3
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 57
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 215
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31