In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Topic: The New World of Publishing
* Today
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“Doing has always been a binary choice; to do or not do. … Revel when you can in the celestial creative mind.” Robert J. Sadler
Topic: The New World of Publishing
Yeah, I know. Digital publishing and ebooks have been around awhile now. But every now and then I’m reminded why I still love this new world of publishing.
An attentive reader who is also a successful professional writer pointed out that my second novel back, Jonah Peach, had a missing word.
The error was at about the 70% point in the Kindle version. The missing word was major to the meaning. The offending passage, on behalf of a character who was a real jerk, read “And why he? That was her job.”
The missing word was “should,” to be inserted between “why” and “he.”
When I added it, “should” became the 33,641st word of 47,253 words total. So good call, DS. That word was at at precisely the 71% position. (grin)
Now, that late in the book, had the error been a matter of “a” instead of “an” or “teh” vs “the” or something like that, I might have let it go.
But the error was large enough to bug me.
So over a period of about five minutes this morning, I added the word to both versions of the manuscript (the one I uploaded to Smashwords and the one I uploaded to D2D and Amazon), pressed the button that reads Publish, and downloaded the new .mobi and .epub files.
Five minutes. See why I love this new world of publishing? (grin)
And as a bonus, DS also wrote a brief review:
“By the way, I read Jonah Peach in one sitting. Really good, but scary! Like a forensic files show. You can’t look away! Lol. It is fascinating to read knowing you wrote it into the dark. … [T]he characters just came to life.”
Difficult to get higher praise than that. (grin)
For those who still wonder whether writing into the dark can really work, I wrote the 47,000 word novel Jonah Peach in 20 days in December.
Then I wrote 42,000 word novel The Cazadores Lounge and Lonely Place in 16 days in January. One of my first readers has already finished that one and wrote, “Mixing first person and third person worked well. At first, I didn’t realize it. I was trying to read for enjoyment and not craft on the first pass. Second time [was] for me to learn.” (Thanks, AH.)
Again, I consider that very high praise. Craft and style should be all but invisible. That the reader didn’t notice the switches from first to third person and back speaks to the ability to wield the craft.
And that’s perfect. I don’t want readers standing around the water cooler on Monday morning wondering why I switched from first to third person and back. I want them talking about the story.
And as I write this Journal entry, I’m already a little over 5000 words into my next novel, the “we went there” SF, Algae Prime.
The point is, you really can write both well and fast. It’s all a matter of trusting what you know, using the time between books to learn something you didn’t know before, and then practicing (putting new words on the page).
Come on in. The water’s fine.
This morning I came out a little earlier than usual to write this and to spend some time on my WIP. If I had a “regular” job, I would go back to it today as well, and probably would have gone in even yesterday. But for now and for the ensuing days, our main priority will be to make ourselves available to our friends as necessary.
We’re also still immersed in the grieving process over the loss of our beautiful friend, though not nearly as immersed as our friends across the road, who lost a wife and mother far too soon in her mid-50s.
If you pray, please pray for that family to heal as quickly and well as possible, to move as quickly as they can from the bitter taste of grief to the gentle knowledge that she will live on in their memories of her.
A bit of a slow day today. The novel’s moving well enough, but the horses were having to stand in mud to get to their water trough, so we rigged them a new one on dry land. (One of them got a hoof ailment a month or so from the same situation.) So part of the day slipped away.
Back at it tomorrow. Oh, and if I don’t feel a short story coming in the novel, I’ll have to write a separate one tomorrow. (grin)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Speaking of learning, see “Study Along Workshop” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/study-along-workshop/.
See “Conspiracy Theories” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/conspiracy-theories-3/. Story ideas.
See especially the 5th paragraph of “The Silurian Hypothesis” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/the-silurian-hypothesis/. More story ideas.
See “Don’t Sweat It!” at https://prowriterswriting.com/dont-sweat-it/.
See “Accountability” at https://mystorydoctor.com/accountability/. I don’t care for amateur writing groups, but if you’re gonna be in a writing group, what David Farland says.
See “May Wedderburn Cannan” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/may-wedderburn-cannan/. Yet more story ideas, and some great poetry.
See “12 Sure Signs You Should Give This Writing Thing a Try” at https://www.authorspublish.com/12-sure-signs-you-should-give-this-writing-thing-a-try/. (Any other “naturals” out there?)
The Numbers
Fiction words today…………………… 2205
Nonfiction words today…………… 900 (Journal)
Writing of Algae Prime (SF novel?)
Day 1…… 2421 words. Total words to date…… 2421
Day 2…… 3312 words. Total words to date…… 5733
Day 3…… 2205 words. Total words to date…… 7938
Total fiction words for the month……… 56330
Total fiction words for the year………… 56330
Total nonfiction words for the month… 23640
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 23640
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 79970
Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 1
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 2
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 46
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 199
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31