In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Playing Catch-Up
* The Older We Get (a personal note)
* Of Interest
Quotes of the Day
“Inspiration is throttled by indecision, hesitation and self-doubt.” Dan Baldwin
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” Dorothy Parker
Playing Catch-Up
Early this month, Bob C. wrote, “I stumbled across this today and thought it was excellent: https://literariness.org/2019/01/02/analysis-of-elmore-leonards-novels/.” If you’re a fan of Elmore Leonard’s work, there you go.
Bob also related this personal anecdote:
“I’ve always been a huge Elmore Leonard fan, maybe because I met him when he was hanging around with the Detroit PD homicide detectives and I was a police reporter. Leonard very definitely wrote into the dark. He never knew where his story was going when he started a novel.
“But he was also a perfectionist. Many days he wrote all day but spent most of his time re-writing until he was satisfied. He considered it a good day if he ended up with one page that met his high standard.
“Did he bring his conscious critical mind into play? Hard to believe he didn’t. But maybe not. [Well, yes, if he spent most of his time rewriting he brought his conscious, critical mind into play. But if that was his process, who am I to argue?]
“So much of what he wrote was more complex than is apparent. The complexity was in the characters more than the stories. He used audacious and the difficult techniques and made it seamless. You never really noticed the changing POVs etc not because he had a knack for doing this but because he worked really hard at it. And he loved doing it.”
Thanks, Bob. I meant to share all of this soon after I received it, but somehow it slipped through the cracks in my mind. Not difficult to do these days.
The Older We Get (a personal note)
My mother was so young when I was born that some of my maternal uncles were more like older brothers to me than uncles. I was closer in age to them than I was to their children. I called them my “bruncles.” They and I both recognized that I was only half-joking.
The youngest of those—Earl Britton, 11 years my elder—passed away several years ago from cancer. He retired from the US Navy as a Master Chief Petty Officer and was instrumental in designing and launching the first US satellite in the Global Positioning System. He also played one heck of a good guitar (and mandolin), which brought him and me even closer.
The second youngest—Jim Britton, only 12 years older than I—died last Saturday night, two weeks after being diagnosed with another kind of cancer. I found out yesterday from my youngest daughter. Jim was square-jawed and handsome (his nickname was “Hollywood”) but musically, he couldn’t play so much as a radio. (grin) But he loved hanging out and listening as we all played (variously) our guitars, mandolins, and fiddle.
I’ve been the eldest male in my line since my dad died in 1987, and the eldest in my clan since 2018 when my paternal uncles died. But I always had my bruncles to fall back on. They were a source of forgotten memories, a spontaneous good time, and most of all, a place to touch Home.
Some regret enters in. I could have visited Jim another time or two before he passed away. I last talked with him when his own eldest brother died some months ago, and maybe once after that.
If there’s someone out there whom you don’t see often enough but who is special to you, please don’t wait to touch base and visit with them, even if only by email or phone. You won’t regret it.
Please, no comments re my personal loss. I appreciate the concern but there’s no need.
Talk with you later.
Of Interest
See “…New Scam Warnings for Writers” at https://annerallen.com/2022/08/bogus-agents-scam-warnings-for-writers/.
See “Kindle Unlimited paid out… ” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/kindle-unlimited-paid-out-over-250-million-to-indie-authors-in-h1-as-apa-reports-total-h1-ebook-market-of-500-million/.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 450 words
Writing of (novel, tentative title)
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for August……… 13935
Total fiction words for the year………… 66431
Total nonfiction words for August… 14340
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 120580
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 187011
Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 67
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: Along with discussing various aspects of the writing craft, I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. WITD is “the only way” to write, but it is by far the easiest, most liberating, and most fun.