In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Farewell and welcome
* Topic: Find Your Passion
* Goal talk
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“When you’re too focused on making money you lose touch with the person you want to be.” Anonymous from an article I read
“Staying home for the entire year was sort of a vacation for me, and I had more time to write.” Kay DiBianca
Farewell to subscriber “canyonwhispers” and welcome to Ellen in the Phillipines. Glad to have you with us. If I can ever help in any way with your writing career, email me.
Topic: Find Your Passion
Soon after October 19, 2014 when I started writing the story of Wes Crowley, I realized I’d found my passion.
I enjoy visiting with friends and relatives. I enjoy watching old movies on television and a few TV shows. I enjoy camping and stargazing and planet watching and a lot of other things.
But my passion is telling stories. Especially longer stories, in the form of novels.
You’ve often heard me talk here about setting priorities. That isn’t difficult for me. It shouldn’t be difficult for you either.
Unless my house is on fire, my number one priority is whatever novel I’m working on at the time. Which is to say, watching and listening to the characters as I and they run through the trenches of the story. I’d love to write 24/7 if I could.
But barring that one event, recording stories for my characters is my passion and therefore my number one priority.
Your results might vary even if you’re a fiction writer. I know one novelist whose true passion appears to be traveling to exotic locations. She puts out one or two novels a year (having plotted them in advance) and takes at least a couple of weeks off once or twice a year so she and her husband can travel. Nothing wrong with that.
I know other novelists who write primarily so they can feed other habits about which they are passionate, like gaming or whatever else. It was one those who asked me recently, “What do you do to relax?”
When I met him with a blank stare, he said, “You know, to get away from the writing for awhile.”
Finally I saw what he was getting at. I laughed. “I write to get away from everything else. Writing is what I do to relax. It’s my escape from my age and infirmities and this ridiculous, bass-ackward world and, you know, everything else.”
And that’s true. I write to forget all those things and a lot more. I write to forget that I’ve been out of the Marine Corps much longer than I was in. I write to transport myself out of all that. I write so I won’t sit around fretting over silly crap that I can’t directly affect. At least not in any legal way. (grin)
Human beings most often project their own opinions and life experiences and passions onto others. We assume those we’re with or those to whom we’re talking feel the same way we do about certain things.
And I’m no different. I often assume other writers are as passionate about writing as I am. Certainly, they don’t have to be (and again, there’s nothing wrong with that), and I know that intellectually.
But it’s difficult for me to understand why someone who professes to “love” telling stories can’t manage even an hour on many days to follow that passion. Likewise, it’s difficult for me to understand why any novelist would actually expect writing a 60-or 80- or 100-thousand word novel to take months, or even years.
It’s difficult for me to imagine anyone who truly loves to write turning out only one or two novel per year. Just my perception as derived from my experience with my own passion.
Because of that four-month slump, this year has been a horrible writing year for me but I still managed to turn out six novels thus far, plus a handful of short stories.
As Kay DiBianca wrote in a comment on yesterday’s TKZ post “Staying home for the entire year was sort of a vacation for me, and I had more time to write.”
YES! That’s exactly it.
More than anything, I’m stymied when I hear a writer use words in a conversation or in an email that indicate he or she finds writing a chore. That writing is something they have to “push” themselves to do. The only thing I can figure is they think being a writer is some sort of romanticized calling or something.
To me, there’s a simple answer for that one. Hey, if writing and telling stories isn’t something you’re passionate about, drop it and find something you ARE passionate about. Then go do that.
I won’t even say I “wish” everyone felt the way I feel about telling stories. But I do hope everyone feels about something the same way I feel about writing. There is no substitute for experiencing the deep internal burning of true passion, and there’s no better feeling in the world than pursuing that feeling.
Have you given any thought to your 2021 goals? That time is rapidly approaching. I’ll be doing a post here soon on setting goals. Stay tuned.
Then again, you don’t have to wait or stick to a calendar. It’s always good to remember that a new week/month/year begins with each new day.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Two New Classes… Two New Storybundles” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/two-new-classes-two-new-storybundles/.
See “The Perfect Word – Eight Qualities to Look For” at https://killzoneblog.com/2020/11/the-perfect-word-eight-qualities-to-look-for.html. If you’re still wrapped around individual words, a good post. If you’re not, a good post to read and forget as it seeps into your subconscious.
See “One in Four Books Is Purchased in the USA During the Holidays” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/one-in-four-books-is-purchased-in-the-usa-during-the-holidays/.
See “Institutional customers have ‘moved wholeheartedly to digital formats’…” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/institutional-customers-have-moved-wholeheartedly-to-digital-formats-association-university-presses-survey/.
See “Resonance in Settings” at https://mystorydoctor.com/david-farlands-writing-tips-resonance-in-settings/. This is what we used to call “intertextuality.”
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 1000 words
Writing of The Journey Home: Part 1 (novel)
Day 1…… 3373 words. Total words to date…… 3373
Day 2…… 3312 words. Total words to date…… 6685
Day 3…… 3292 words. Total words to date…… 9977
Day 4…… 3794 words. Total words to date…… 13771
Day 5…… 4482 words. Total words to date…… 18253
Day 6…… 3379 words. Total words to date…… 21632
Day 7…… 4550 words. Total words to date…… 26182
Day 8…… 3326 words. Total words to date…… 29508
Total fiction words for November……… 61130
Total fiction words for the year………… 424408
Total nonfiction words for November… 15200
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 181040
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 605448
Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 6
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 13
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 51
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 214
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31