The Journal: The world is chock full

In today’s Journal

* The world is chock full
* Free lecture
* A recent lightning strike
* A good day of writing
* The Numbers

The world is chock full of people who are willing to teach you how to write fiction but have never written so much as one short story or novel themselves. Think about that.

The same people who smile smugly and would never sign up for an international money transfer from an obscure Nigerian Prince rush out to buy books on how to write fiction from people who’ve never written fiction. It’s exactly the same thing.

I think it’s safe to say most of these folks don’t consider themselves scam artists. They’re probably good people who are simply ignorant. They simply don’t know how much they don’t know. Because they’ve never put into practice all the crap they’re talking. In street parlance, they can’t walk the walk. And even the talk they talk is nothing original.

But the fact remains, running a scam even unintentionally is still running a scam. And running a scam makes one a master of nothing but running a scam.

Many of them describe themselves as “author and editor.” But when you look up their name on Amazon or Google, chances are you won’t find even a short story, much less a novel. Chances are you’ll find only books about how to write fiction.

Some few will have published a few short stories or a novel or two. Which makes them beginning, Stage 1 writers at best.

It’s safe to say those “how to write fiction” books are only regurgitations of the same old crap that’s been going around since roughly the 1960s.

Still, buy them if you want. Believe them if you want. But don’t express surprise afterward that somehow you still don’t know your posterior from your elbow about writing fiction.

Of course it’s easy for me to talk. I was a very lucky guy. From the time I started writing short fiction, it made sense to me not to listen to advice from anyone who had never written fiction. Nor would I expect a lawyer to teach me plumbing or automobile engine repair. But that’s just me.

If you’re interested in the free lecture “The First Twenty Pages: How to Win Over Agents, Editors, & Readers in Just Twenty Pages” you can watch it at https://authorspublish.com/free-author-lecture-the-first-twenty-pages/.

Yesterday I read (unfortunately) about a recent lightning strike. A former federal bureaucrat wrote a novel. The novel was immediately picked up by two big-deal political cronies who made themselves wealthy at taxpayers’ expense and today own a production company.

Fake reviews (reviews written by people who never bothered actually reading the book) raved about how wonderful the book was. Naturally, a film is now in progress.

Because of the bureaucrat’s former affiliation with the cronies, she’s now rolling in dough despite never having had to negotiate anything. Her affiliation did all the negotiating for her.

I have no doubt that soon she’ll be teaching others how to write fiction. I am happy to report that I am not a big enough person to be happy for the bureaucrat. Frankly, the whole thing makes me want to puke. Sigh. Not that I labor under any misconceptions that the “author” thinks what I care.

And in case you’re wondering, if lightning of that particular variety ever tried to strike near me, I would run. I’d rather be clean than rich. Or be affiliated with people who can be favorably compared with the south end of a northbound horse.

I had a pretty good day of writing yesterday. For the first time on this novel, I even hit my daily word count goal (barely). And I got most of the writing done before noon. Then I took about an hour to update StoneThread Publishing, mostly to add pages and covers for my Future of Humanity (FOH) series. Then I took the rest of the day off.

You can see the whole SF page at https://stonethreadpublishing.com/science-fantasy/. I think there will be 10 titles in this series. I even added the cover for the book I’m writing now, given that it will be up for pre-order in another week or so. (grin)

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “A Cautionary Tale (Hollywood Part 1)” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/a-cautionary-tale-hollywood-part-1/.

See “A Single Word Can Change the Tone” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/03/a-single-word-changes-the-tone.html. Some good points, some stupid points, all wrapped around words, not Story.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 720 words

Writing of The Journey Home: Part 9 (novel)

Day 1…… 2019 words. Total words to date…… 2019
Day 2…… 3650 words. Total words to date…… 5669
Day 3…… 3760 words. Total words to date…… 9429
Day 4…… 2834 words. Total words to date…… 12263
Day 5…… 2959 words. Total words to date…… 15222
Day 6…… 3394 words. Total words to date…… 18616
Day 7…… 2727 words. Total words to date…… 21343
Day 8…… 3436 words. Total words to date…… 24779
Day 9…… 4043 words. Total words to date…… 28822

Total fiction words for March……… 65810
Total fiction words for the year………… 264818
Total nonfiction words for March… 18480
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 64510
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 329328

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 5
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 59
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.