The Journal: Just Checking In

In today’s Journal

* Just Checking In
* Corona Model 3 Folding Typewriter
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
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I’m not back, but I thought I’d check in. Hope this finds all of you well and writing your fingers to the bone.

I’m showing up at the desk every day, hitting all my usual blogs, etc. and attempting to open the right valves to let the fiction flow. So I’m here. If any of you need anything, email me.

When I’ve put enough time in the chair to know it isn’t going to happen for at least one more day, I go do other things. My primary priority remains writing fiction. I guess I just want to say if you’re one of those who WANTS to write and who CAN write, what’s stopping you? Count your blessings and just write already.

I visited an estate sale recently and bought another antique typewriter. This one is over 100 years old. It’s a Corona Model 3 portable (folding) typewriter, with the serial number 123136, which places its date of manufacture firmly in 1917.

Anecdotally, one of Hemingway’s favorite typewriters was the 1921 Corona 3 that Hadley Richardson presented to him for his 22nd birthday. Mine is older than Hemingway’s, but quirkily enough, mine is also far less useful to me as a writer of stories in English. It has a Cyrillic (Slavic) keyboard.

The closest I can make out by comparing the characters on the keyboard to the characters in various languages, this one was used in either Bulgaria or Belorussia (today, Belarus). It is in good working order, and it even has a ribbon and a carrying case. (The carrying case needs to be repaired but it’s all there.)

If you like old typewriters and if you’d be interested in owning this very unique one, email me. Otherwise I’ll wait and let one of my children sell it.

Talk with you again when I’ve resumed writing fiction.

Of Interest

See “Writing Tips, Book Events, and Writers’ Conference” at https://www.suecoletta.com/writing-tips-book-events-and-writers-conference/. There’s a lot here to look at and check out.

See “Your Characters, Real or Imagined” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/08/your-characters-real-or-imagined.html.

See “Different Roads To The Same Destination” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/08/different-roads-to-the-same-destination.html.

See “28 Publishers Seeking Young Adult Novels – No Agent Required” at https://authorspublish.com/28-publishers-seeking-young-adult-submissions/.

See “Plot Or Character? What’s Your Starting Point?” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/08/plot-or-character-whatsyour-starting-point.html.

See “Traversable wormholes are possible under certain gravity conditions” at https://www.space.com/traversable-wormholes-modified-gravity.

See “Last Day of the Workshop Sale… Six New Classes Added for Today!” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/last-day-of-the-workshop-sale-six-new-classes-added-for-today/.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 400 words

Writing of WCGN 5: Tentative Title (novel)

Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for August……… 6933
Total fiction words for the year………… 623282
Total nonfiction words for August… 7660
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 154090
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 777372

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 13
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
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.