The Journal: Mentorships Now Available

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Food for Thought
* Mentorships Now Available
* The Novel
* A Few Words on Genre
* Of Interest

Quote of the Day

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” Herman Melville

Food for Thought

So I don’t forget, here’s a free copy of brand-new handout: Craft and Non-Craft Topics to Stir Thought. When you click the link, a blank screen will open and the document will download automatically.

Mentorships Now Available

Because it’s difficult for me to let go of a concept once I sink my teeth into it, I finished the new Mentorship page yesterday and posted it. But it wasn’t quite right. I had two “levels” and some other nonsense, and all I really wanted to do was pay forward what I’ve learned to other writers who are also hungry.

So I drastically revised and simplified the page this morning before this post went live. (If you’re one of the few who saw it last night, please look again.) You can see it at https://hestanbrough.com/new-mentorships/.

The mentorship is primarily designed to keep the student/writer focused on a particular work in progress as I guide him or her through crafting, finishing and submitting or publishing that work.

One new thing — the mentorship should last between one and three months, no longer. If the student wants to continue after three months, the price increases. That is meant to encourage students to learn while they’re in the midst of a mentorship, and it also should open more mentorship slots.

Once you’ve looked over the page, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Of course, I have to limit the number of writers I can work with at one time, but I will create a waiting list if necessary.

The Novel

Because I latched onto the mentorship thing, I didn’t get started on the novel until a little after noon. I actually put in a full day’s work (around 7 hours) on developing the Mentorship page, creating and adding the PayPal app, etc.

So before I did anything else, I took a break up at the house for about a half-hour, then came back to the writing ‘puter. Thank goodness I was coming back to new writing again. I still have a little more cycling to do, but not until I finish the current segment of new writing.

Turned out I was tireder than I thought. I decided not to count yesterday as a writing day at all. So the novel didn’t finish in July, but finishing wasn’t really the point of the mini-challenge anyway. The point was getting myself started again. (grin)

A Few Words on Genre

In the Anne R. Allen post (link in “Of Interest”) the author says of genre, “Gotta pick one. Or maybe two if you have a mash-up in mind.”

Respectfully — um no, you don’t.

If you trust your characters and your creative subconscious and just write the story, the genre or genres will become clear (or not) after the story’s finished.

Of course, if you’re returning to write another story in a series, you already know the primary genre, but otherwise, don’t sweat it. Seriously, it doesn’t matter until the story’s finished.

Genre is not a concern before or during the writing. Genre is a concern only in selecting where to shelve a new release. And sometimes, that’s out of your hands anyway. For example, Amazon, Apple, and Smashwords choose in which genre to “shelve” the ebooks they license.

Talk with you again later.

Of Interest

See “Adventures in Reversion – Getting the Rights Back” at https://killzoneblog.com/2022/08/adventures-in-reversion-getting-the-rights-back.html. Of course, those of us who never sell our rights to publishers don’t have this problem.

See “The Female Quixote and Me” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-female-quixote-and-me/. I posted this mostly for PG’s take.

See “Is Decision Fatigue Standing Between You and Writing Success?” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/is-decision-fatigue-standing-between-you-and-writing-success/.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 650 words

Writing of Blackwell Ops 8 (tentative title, novel)

Day 19… 2117 words. Total words to date…… 41729
Day 20… 2025 words. Total words to date…… 43754
Day 21… 1770 words. Total words to date…… 45524
Day 22… 3296 words. Total words to date…… 48820

Total fiction words for July……… 7091
Total fiction words for the year………… 52496
Total nonfiction words for August… 650
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 106890
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 159386

Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. I’ve never said WITD is “the only way” to write, nor will I ever. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among other topics.