In today’s Journal
* More on Ideas
* Topic: Introducing Tidbits
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
More on Ideas
Excerpted from an email to a potential new mentoring student. In his email he told me he was deluged with story ideas:
I’m glad you’re deluged with ideas. I get so tired of would-be writers asking “Where do you get ideas?” My typical response is “Where do you NOT get ideas?”
Just this morning during my walk, I passed through several swarms of flying ants. My imagination immediately went to an alien invasion.
A little later, as I was eating breakfast and looking out through the glass door, a blade of grass, moved by a slight breeze, was flashing signals at me. (There was a bit of dew on the grass.) But I “saw” someone who’d climbed to the top of a tree flashing signals with a mirror. Why? Where’d the mirror come from? Why did he feel the need to climb a tree to get his signal out? Who was he trying to signal? And why? Etc.
He also asked about writing in different genres, thereby spreading himself “too thin,” and the effect that might have on readers:
Don’t worry too much about genres or spreading thin. Just put everything out under your own name or a single pen name. Readers will find you. Most readers read more for the author’s voice than for genre. If Nora Roberts suddenly started writing mysteries or thrillers, most of her romance genre readers would follow her in a heartbeat.
Topic: Introducing Tidbits
This is a new feature of the Journal, in which I intend to share more widely things I’m talking about with a new writer while we’re in the pre-mentorship stage. I’ll try to share a different idea or two here each day.
New writers tend to ask the best questions, at least from an instructor’s standpoint. They tend to ask things I’ve long since taken for granted and might otherwise fail to mention.
But new writer or not, if you have a question you’d like me to answer, email me.
Don’t write by the clock. If you do, you’ll be looking at the clock a lot, and that is a conscious-mind activity. Never intentionally open your creative mind to critical mind input. And no, don’t set a timer. Chances are, part of your mind will be waiting for the timer to ding. Forget all that. Just show up at your appointed time and write.
1. I have found a daily word-count goal most useful. If you want to write for an hour every day, I recommend a daily goal of 1000 words. (If that seems like a lot, it isn’t. It’s only 17 words per minute.) If you can set aside less time or more time per day, adjust that goal as necessary.
2. Keep track of your progress on a spreasheet. You’ll be amazed how fast the words add up. (I will gladly share my own spreadsheet as an example of one way to set it up. You only have to email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.)
The idea is to write 1000 words per day. Sometimes you’ll fall short, but that’s all right. Tomorrow, the number resets to zero anyway. On other days, you’ll be caught up in the story and write more than 1000 words. Again, that’s fine because the next day the number resets to zero.
3. If you find that you’re consistently hitting or surpassing your goal, raise it to 1500 or 2000 words per day.
Having a goal is important, but the actual goal itself doesn’t matter. A goal is only a tool, something to strive for and make you reach, something that will drive you to the chair and force you to put your fingers on the keyboard and write.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Almost to Fourth Stretch Goal…” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/almost-to-fourth-stretch-goal/. Worth backing just to get teh stretch goal rewards.
See “Epic Novel Writing Workshop” at https://mystorydoctor.com/epic-novel-writing-workshop/.
See “Single-draft Shakespeare” at https://mystorydoctor.com/single-draft-shakespeare/. I can think of several more contemporary examples.
See “25 Books That Writers of Fiction Should Consider Reading” at https://authorspublish.com/25-books-that-writers-of-fiction-should-consider-reading/. I respectfully suggest unless you’re an essayist, you should never buy The Elements of Style. Fiction isn’t about correct grammar. Fiction is about Story. And I humbly recommend adding Writing the Character-Driven Story (by moi) in its place.
See “(Character) Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes” at https://countercraft.substack.com/p/character-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 720 words
Writing of WCGN 4: William J. Pinchot (tentative title, novel)
Day 1…… 1965 words. Total words to date…… 1965
Day 2…… 2624 words. Total words to date…… 4589
Day 3…… 1824 words. Total words to date…… 6413
Day 4…… 3160 words. Total words to date…… 9573
Day 5…… 3504 words. Total words to date…… 13077
Day 6…… 4704 words. Total words to date…… 17781
Day 7…… 2552 words. Total words to date…… 20333
Day 8…… 2234 words. Total words to date…… 22567
Total fiction words for July……… 69378
Total fiction words for the year………… 598154
Total nonfiction words for July… 17290
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 143080
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 741234
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 12
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 65
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.