In today’s Journal
* Are you like me?
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Are you like me?
Do you wake up each morning with a child-like desire to get dressed and race past breakfast (and the surprised look on your mother’s face) and out the front door to play with your friends?
It’s an exciting game, but it ran long yesterday. When the sun started to fade in the west, you had to stop and go inside, “wash up,” and eat supper.
But the game was far from over at that point. Still carrying the fire of the game, you ate quickly, then watched TV for awhile and were amazed at how well the story played out. And how sad the tiny people inside the TV must have been that it was over for another week. Aaugh!
And finally you went almost anxiously to bed. Because tomorrow’s a brand new day! And you looked forward to waking up and resuming the game again, and part of you hoped it would go on forever.
But really, how long it would last or what might happen next never crossed your mind. All that mattered is you’d slept, you were refreshed, and morning was here at last! The game awaits!
Here’s where I might be a little luckier than you. For me, every coming day is a weekend day. There are no boring schoolbooks to pull out, no homeworkd to trudge through. So for every unfortunate out there who’s still tied to a day job other than writing and who gets only two full days per week to write, I get seven. As I said, I’m a lucky guy.
When the sun is setting, I do still have to go inside, wash up, and eat, grumbling like a five year old all the way. Then I watch a couple hours of TV, sometimes still grumbling. (And yes, I still feel bad for the tiny people inside the TV.)
But I go to bed almost anxiously, because I know that’s a neccessary threshold to cross, and I know it will lead me to the next morning where the game and my friends await. Could life get any better? I don’t think so.
I recently watched a TV series featuring the biblical character Cain, the first murderer. The story described in detail how horribly bored he was. He had been fated to immortality, wandering the earth forever, unable to die.
My only thought was this: The guy should’a been a fiction writer. He’d never be bored and he’d be grateful for the time.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Business Master Class Started” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/business-master-class-started/. You can still get in.
See “Can Multitasking Harm the Brain?” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/07/can-multitasking-harm-the-brain.html. And see my response.
See “This U.S. Navy Warship Shot Down MiGs and Pranked the Soviets” at https://warisboring.com/this-u-s-navy-warship-shot-down-migs-and-pranked-the-soviets/.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 470 words
Writing of WCGN3: The New Mexico Territory (novel)
Day 1…… 1191 words. Total words to date…… 1191
Day 2…… 1206 words. Total words to date…… 2397
Day 3…… 3876 words. Total words to date…… 6273
Day 4…… 2559 words. Total words to date…… 8832
Day 5…… 1561 words. Total words to date…… 10393
Day 6…… 3007 words. Total words to date…… 13400
Total fiction words for July……… 32142
Total fiction words for the year………… 560821
Total nonfiction words for July… 7740
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 133530
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 694351
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 11
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 64
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.