The Journal: More Good Input

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* More good input
* Thanks to Maggie King
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quotes of the Day

“I’ve never followed the tide of popular opinion in the way I write my novels. I’m not going to start now. … I just make an effort not to write anything into my stories that would hurt or show contempt for someone because they’re male or female.” Haruki Murakami

“Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” Haruki Murakami

“When I’m writing, I write every day. It’s lovely when that’s happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don’t even know what day of the week it is.” Raymond Carver

More good input from my readers on the mentorship vs. non-fiction books topic. Thanks everyone.

One person suggested I write nonfiction after I finish writing fiction each day. I wish I could do that. It would probably be ideal, especially for my situation, but my head doesn’t function like that.

When I stop writing fiction for the day, I stop because the words are getting cloudy, my fingers are miscuing on the keys, etc. My brain’s done. (grin) Every day, I leave the Hovel wishing I could have written more and longer.

I’ve also thought about writing one or two nonfiction books after I finish a novel. I could do that, if I can stay away from fiction long enough. That’s probably what I’ll try to do. We’ll see. After all, some of the topics will take only a few hours or a day to write.

By the way, if you still want to contribute your opinion, the other day I posted an erroneous link to do so. The correct link to leave a comment is https://hestanbrough.com/the-journal-mentorships-vs-nonfiction-books/. Or you can email me.

Thanks to Maggie King, a prolific author of teen romance, for her question in a comment on character descriptions. I responded briefly at https://hestanbrough.com/the-journal-opportunities-and-misinformation/#comments.

But this is an involved question, so I’ll respond more fully in a topic or maybe a series of topics on Character Descriptions in the next few days. Also, for now, see my topic “Readers Like to Fill-in the Blanks” at https://hestanbrough.com/the-journal-readers-like-to-fill-in-the-blanks-uh-no/.

In the meantime, I’m offering another free book: Creating Realistic Characters. It’s a pamphlet, really, at under 2700 words, and I wrote it way back before I’d written even one novel (or learned to do a decent cover, as you will find out). But it’s chock full of good information that might help, including lists of character traits, etc. To get your free copy, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.

I’ve also added four links in today’s “Of Interest” on the topic. Note: I have not read all of the articles referenced in the links (yet), but they were written by authors I generally trust.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Raymond Carver’s greatest writing advice.” at https://lithub.com/get-in-get-out-dont-linger-go-on-read-raymond-carvers-greatest-writing-advice/. Thanks, KC.

See “Haruki Murakami has ‘never thought about’ changing the way he writes female characters” at https://lithub.com/haruki-murakami-has-never-thought-about-changing-the-way-he-writes-female-characters/. Thanks, KC.

See “Here’s a list of everything Haruki Murakami has ever compared to writing.” at https://lithub.com/heres-a-list-of-everything-haruki-murakami-has-ever-compared-to-writing/.

See “The 6 Ways We Judge People When We First Meet Them” at https://www.aconsciousrethink.com/4894/6-ways-judge-people-first-meet/.

See “How to Describe Your Main Character” at https://killzoneblog.com/2019/10/how-to-describe-your-main-character.html.

See “Do You See Your Character the Way Readers Do? First Page Critique: Rabya” at https://killzoneblog.com/2018/02/do-you-see-your-character-way-readers.html.

See “Several post on characters” at https://mystorydoctor.com/?s=Characters.

See “Amazon Buys MGM Film Studio” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/amazon-buys-mgm-film-studio/.

See “Rethinking and Book Wars” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/rethinking-and-book-wars/.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 580 words

Writing of (novel)

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

Total fiction words for May……… 71896
Total fiction words for the year………… 443175
Total nonfiction words for May… 18630
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 103490
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 546665

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 9
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 62
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.