Hey Folks,
You can’t tell, but I’m laughing out loud as I write this. Yesterday I discovered (on top of everything else) I had a bad case of sniffles. As in grabbing a tissue and blowing my nose every other minute or so.
By the time my wife got home, I realized I had a head cold. (grin) It’s not funny, not really, but in the overall context it’s hilarious.
Awhile back, a person who should feel close to me asked why I was giving away some of my stuff to my children. “You aren’t dying,” the person wrote. “After all, it isn’t like you have cancer.”
Wow, eh?
The fact is, among diseases, heart disease is the number one killer in America. And that’s only the plumbing side of things, things that lead to heart attack (the death of part of the heart muscle).
It doesn’t include plumbing issues that lead to stroke; it doesn’t include arrhythmias (like my heart block), which can lead to cardiac arrest; and it doesn’t include heart failure.
And cancer? The big C (in all its forms combined) is number 2. So….
Anyway, after the cold piled itself on top of everything else, I decided I wouldn’t do much over the weekend. Just take some days off and ease up.
Also yesterday I received a packet of contest entries I’m supposed to judge. And they’re short-short stories, so easy-peasy. I’ll get those done and probably out today, but nothing else.
And this morning I received a manuscript on which a client (having rewritten it) wants a re-edit. So I’ll start that in a day or two as well.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See Lee Lofland’s “A Sleepy Tweet: Working the Graveyard Shift” at https://www.leelofland.com/a-sleepy-tweet-working-the-graveyard-shift/.
See Joe Hartlaub’s “blunt” first-page critique of “The Bare Bones of a Story: SKELETON” at https://killzoneblog.com/2018/09/the-bare-bones-of-a-story-skeleton-a-first-page-critique.html. If the anonymous author places learning the craft above having his/her feelings hurt a little, s/he should learn a ton from this.
From the Something To Consider Department (via Ann Stratton) see “How Will Police Solve Murders on Mars?” at https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/mars-pd/569668/. Maybe a novel series here, folks. Either way, this is an extremely interesting article. (Should you happen to browse other articles listed below the “Mars” article, be prepared for considerable political bias.)
Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 390 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 390
Writing of Nick 3 (novel, tentative title)
Day 1…… 3422 words. Total words to date…… 3422
Day 2…… 2664 words. Total words to date…… 6086
Day 3…… 3190 words. Total words to date…… 9276
Day 4…… 1090 words. Total words to date…… 10366
Day 5…… 1466 words. Total words to date…… 11832
Day 6…… 2859 words. Total words to date…… 14691
Day 7…… 3362 words. Total words to date…… 18053
Day 8…… 2465 words. Total words to date…… 20518
Day 9…… 1177 words. Total words to date…… 21695
Day 10… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for the month……… 21995
Total fiction words for the year………… 336726
Total nonfiction words for the month… 12800
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 130616
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 467092
Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 7
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 33
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 6
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………………… 193
Days of writing fiction every day………………………… 0