The Journal, Saturday, 10/21

Hey Folks,

Well, I spent much of the morning on the Jerry Jenkins website I told you about yesterday.

Here are my recommendations:

— take advantage of the free giveaway for signing up for his newsletter. You can always unsubscribe later.
— take advantage (with a grain of salt, as always) of the appropriate blog posts and other items listed on his Resources page.
— take advantage of his blog, which I finally found at https://www.jerryjenkins.com/blog/.
— be careful of spending money. Like many of these sites, it exists primarily to upsell you on other products.
— avoid getting a Writers Guild membership. It does NOT include any of the courses on the site. The Writers Guild is basically a forum in which you can glean advice from people who have zero or very little idea what they’re talking about. So caution there.
— before you shell out the bucks for any of the courses, be sure to read the course description.

***

I also rediscovered Chris Fox’s website (see “Of Interest”). I ordered his ebook, 5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter. Mostly out of curiosity. (You can get it free at his site for signing up for his nonfiction newsletter, but I didn’t want to sign up. Besides, it was only $1.20 at Amazon.)

I thought I might write today, but that’s not going to happen. Not just yet.
***

However, reading roughly half of 5,000 Words Per Hour reminded me of several things I used to do back when I was being very productive. It also encouraged me to begin doing them again.

Chief among those things was having a dedicated writing space. That consists of not only a physical location, but a dedicated computer and chair so that when I approach that computer and that chair in that location my subconscious knows it’s time to play.

Mr. Fox, I and others espouse that theorum, and I know it to be true at least in my own case because it worked so well for me for so long.

So I spent part of the afternoon prepping a new place. It isn’t The Adobe Hovel. Then again, it doesn’t harbor scorpions and burrowing animals and things that bite sandaled toes beneath the desk.

I’m not promising myself when I will begin writing fiction again, but when the urge hits, the place will be there. Onward.

Back tomorrow.

Of Interest

See “Introducing the Smart Author Podcast” at http://blog.smashwords.com/2017/10/smart-author-podcast.html.

“When You’ve Lost Your Passion for Writing” at https://www.jerryjenkins.com/youve-lost-passion-writing/. A couple of good tidbits and some things I didn’t know.

I kind of like Chris Fox’s style. Stop by and take a look at http://www.chrisfoxwrites.com/. Especially check out the menu items on his For Writers tab.

Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 440 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 440

Writing of Pulp Novel 5 (a Stern Richards novel)

Day 1…… 1080 words. Total words to date…… 1080
Day 2…… 2167 words. Total words to date…… 3247
Day 3…… 1370 words. Total words to date…… 4617
Day 4…… 1840 words. Total words to date…… 6457
Day 5…… 1193 words. Total words to date…… 7650
Day 6…… 1407 words. Total words to date…… 9057
Day 7…… 1180 words. Total words to date…… 10237
Day 8…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for the month……… 12462
Total fiction words for the year………… 446608
Total nonfiction words for the month… 10840
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 163523
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 610131

The Daily Journal blog streak……………………………………… 691 days
Calendar Year 2017 Novels to Date………………………… 9
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 27
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 4
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………………… 182