In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Food for Thought
* Yesterday
* Today
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day (I’m gorging on Bradbury)
“The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling and tiger-trapping.”
Ray Bradbury
“Dandelion Wine, like most of my books, was a surprise… I simply got out of bed each morning, walked to my desk, and put down any word or series of words that happened along in my head.”
Ray Bradbury
Food for Thought
Food for Thought might become a new regular feature of the Journal. In it, I will offer up story ideas in various genres.
In today’s “Of Interest,” Debbie Burke of the Kill Zone blog talks about drones that can tell your local police whether you have a fever, etc. from “200 feet away without you ever knowing it.”
She then posed the question, “Does invasion of a person’s body by technology constitute unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment?”
Unfortunately, there’s a great deal of food for thought in Debbie’s post for thriller writers.
Observing the public response to the pandemic, I no longer wonder whether a policy instituted by any level of government or the private sector violates the constitution. Some plainly do (and have done for years, even decades). And some, I believe, intentionally do.
Recently in a tiny personal blog, I witnessed a survivor of a Japanese prison camp on the (then) island of Java during World War II actually decry the lack of guards at the two perimeter gates of her retirement community to keep residents from “sneaking out” to go shopping.
To me, the question is how how many violations of their constitutional rights the citizenry will accept, or even insist upon, for a modicum of perceived safety.
Yesterday, I rolled out extremely late. It was almost 5 a.m. Searched for items for “Of Interest,” wrote a short topic, and filed the Journal.
I went up to the house for a quick breakfast of poor-man’s juevos rancheros (scrambled eggs with Pace picante salsa on top). Then my wife and my cane and my camera and I went for a short walk (about a mile).
After a shower, I got back to the Hovel at around 7:30, then wrote a new blog post for HarveyStanbrough.com announcing the Smashwords Authors Give Back Sale (my books are 60% off there through May 31) AND my all new book giveaway. For details, see https://harveystanbrough.com/pro-writers/book-sale-and-book-giveaway/.
Finally moved over to the writing ‘puter and the novel at 9 a.m. In three sessions I wrote just under 3500 words (see Day 9).
Today I rolled out late again, though not as late. Today again, I will personally escape the world in my current story.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Last 18 Hours…” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/last-18-hours/.
See “True Crime Thursday – Invasion of the Body” at https://killzoneblog.com/2020/04/true-crime-thursday-invasion-of-the-body.html.
See “How To Write A Perfect Cliff-Hanger” at https://www.livewritethrive.com/2020/04/27/how-to-write-a-perfect-cliff-hanger/.
See “The 3 Ms of Character Setup” (strictly FWIW) at https://www.janefriedman.com/the-3-ms-of-character-setup/.
See “Business Musings: The Year Ahead…Again” at https://kriswrites.com/2020/04/29/business-musings-the-year-ahead-again/.
See “How Do You Rate as a Ghostwriter?” at https://prowriterswriting.com/how-do-you-rate-as-a-ghostwriter/.
The Numbers
Fiction words yesterday…………………… 34842
Nonfiction words today…………… 540 (Journal)
Writing of The Good of the Galaxy 2 (novel)
Day 1…… 6138 words. Total words to date…… 6138
Day 2…… 4514 words. Total words to date…… 10652
Day 3…… 3633 words. Total words to date…… 14285
Day 4…… 3181 words. Total words to date…… 17466
Day 5…… 3224 words. Total words to date…… 20690
Day 6…… 3954 words. Total words to date…… 24644
Day 7…… 3606 words. Total words to date…… 28250
Day 8…… 3334 words. Total words to date…… 31584
Day 9…… 3258 words. Total words to date…… 34842
Total fiction words for the month……… 71612
Total fiction words for the year………… 279594
Total nonfiction words for the month… 21960
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 103110
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 382704
Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 4
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 12
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 49
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 208
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31