The Journal: Another Myth Revealed

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Update on my offer
* Topic: Another Myth Revealed
* Today
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“We’re very lucky as prose writers. We can market our practice. We don’t see the reactions to it in real time.” Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Update on my offer

If you don’t know what offer I’m talking about, you can read all about it at https://hestanbrough.com/the-journal-writer-fear/.

I know not everyone reads the Journal every day, so I’ll leave the offer open for a week. If you browse these posts less often than once a week, then you’re just out of luck. (grin)

You can sign on anytime through Sunday, February 23. At that point I’ll close it off. I was insane to make this offer in the first place, but I did make it so I’ll stick with it.

But just to clarify, this offer is open only to readers of this Journal. Please don’t offer it to your Facebook or Twitter friends, etc. though you’re welcome and even encouraged to publicize the Journal itself. The URL is HEStanbrough.com. Subscriptions are free.

Topic: Another Myth Revealed

In an email, a writer told me his big fear with writing into the dark is that “the stories will be random, maybe pointless…. I’m okay with calling it ‘practice,’ but practice does not often equal publishable words. (Maybe that’s a myth.)”

Yes, that’s a myth, and a strong one. It’s also couched in an inadvertently erroneous statement. Practice, in fact, ALWAYS equals publishable words. The only unpublishable words are the ones you delete or replace with other words during cycling (revision while still in the creative subconscious).

Maybe the writer meant practice doesn’t often equal “palatable” words or a palatable story. But that would be erroneous too. Every story is palatable and enjoyable to someone. And every story is random and pointless and maybe even distasteful or downright “offensive” to someone.

I’ve mentioned before the short story I wrote that I thought was garbage. But knowing I’m the worst judge of my own work, I published it anyway. And a few weeks later a reader wrote to tell me my story was one of the best she’d ever read, even that it was favorably comparable to Hemingway’s short stories. Reader taste. Go figure.

But none of that, good or bad, matters. What matters is that you write, that you tell a story, preferably one that entertains You. That’s the whole purpose of writing fiction: to entertain, first yourself and then others… maybe. You write it and publish it, and others are either entertained by it or they aren’t.

But who cares? Read the Quote of the Day above again.

The fear that a story might be “random” or “pointless” is your critical mind’s ploy to get you to pay attention to it. It’s another of those “You Can’ts” I wrote about in yesterday’s topic.

“You Can’t” write a story without thinking it through (critical mind). If you do, it might be random and pointless.”

Translation—”I will have wasted my time and nobody will buy the story. And chances are, nobody will buy any other stories in the series because of that one stupid random, pointless story. (At this point, you’re on the verge of hyperventilating.) Nope. I’d better not risk it.”

And the critical voice has won another round.

So what if you feel the story is random and pointless or whatever other adjectives your critical mind wants to throw at you? Every short story and every novel ever published probably was judged random and pointless by someone. Again, so what? It all goes to reader taste.

A short story or novel is not important in and of itself. Or rather, its level or degree of importance is determined by each individual reader. What’s important is that you write.

Don’t write to make a point. Don’t write to illuminate a theme. You’re writing fiction, not a handbook on creating a nuclear device. You can make up settings and the legends and local lore that appear in your stories. You can make up character names and street names and town names and glades and woods and castles and bodies of water.

Write to entertain yourself, to see what a particular character or set of characters has been up to lately in the story they’re living over in that other dimension even when you aren’t visiting them.

If a story entertains you as you write it, chances are it will entertain most others who read it. So stop worrying, stop thinking consciously about it, and just write it already.

Today, at a half-hour after midnight, my little girl cat decided I’d slept long enough. I’d planned to get up at 2. But I was afraid if I went back to sleep I might sleep too far beyond that, so I got up, got my coffee, and shuffled out to the Hovel.

There I learned that one hearty soul had taken me up on my offer of free mentoring for a week. One. Lucky me. (grin)

So I spent the first half-hour composing the email that will become my boilerplate, standard reply to those who would like me to mentor them. Then I spent 2-3 hours on my response to the writer who enlisted my help. Then I wrote all of this stuff.

A short break up to the house, and finally to the novel at 7. Yeah, six and a half hours into the day. (grin) Doesn’t matter. I only need to write for 3 hours sometime today to reach my writing goal.

Had another writer take me up on my offer. He and I will work together in early March.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Death Surrounds Us — How One Writer Escapes” at https://www.suecoletta.com/death-surrounds-us-how-one-writer-escapes/. Long but interesting.

See “Write Like a Warrior” at https://mystorydoctor.com/write-like-a-warrior/. If you pay attention, you’ll see a lot of the same stuff I tell people but from a different direction.

See “You Can Now Download 150,000 Free Illustrations of the Natural World” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/you-can-now-download-150000-free-illustrations-of-the-natural-world/.

See “Alphas and Betas” at https://prowriterswriting.com/alphas-and-betas/.

The Numbers

Fiction words today…………………… 2914
Nonfiction words today…………… 1010 (Journal)

Writing of The Three-Year Turn (novel)

Day 1…… 3570 words. Total words to date…… 3570
Day 2…… 4026 words. Total words to date…… 7596
Day 3…… 4251 words. Total words to date…… 11847
Day 4…… 2117 words. Total words to date…… 13964
Day 5…… 3139 words. Total words to date…… 17103
Day 6…… 3191 words. Total words to date…… 20294
Day 7…… 3220 words. Total words to date…… 23514
Day 8…… 4866 words. Total words to date…… 28380
Day 9…… 1809 words. Total words to date…… 30189
Day 10… 2914 words. Total words to date…… 33103

Total fiction words for the month……… 42692
Total fiction words for the year………… 108236
Total nonfiction words for the month… 14170
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 45430
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 149742

Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 5
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 47
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 201
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31