Hey Folks,
Very strange goings on here at the Stanbrough Camp for Odd People.
Two days ago, I didn’t write any fiction at all. The story was there, but I wasn’t.
Yesterday, I stopped a few hundred words short of 4,000 because I just ran out of steam. My fingers were beginning to hit the wrong keys.
Today, just before noon, I had 4,967 words and was NOT out of steam.
Part of it’s because the story is really flowing. And the part I finished today is a novellette at 9500 words. It’s the story that wants to be a novel. It might someday, but it won’t be one of the 10 novels I plan to write during the first 100 days of 2019. (grin)
Anyway, then I wrote the stuff below. Now I’m going back to the novel for one more (probably short) session. I want to at least get a new section started so I can leave a ragged end. Then I’m done for the day.
And a very good day (for me) it’s been.
***
We’ve had two new subscribers join us in the past two days. Well, maybe three, but two new email addresses (grin).
Welcome to Sean and Carolyn and Steve. (You know, IF that’s their real names. You know how writers are. grin)
For you new folks, I don’t often have 4000+ word days. If you look at my numbers below the current WIP (left column) you’ll see that the numbers are all over the place.
I’m using the current novel to practice so I can get myself up to speed to write ten 40,000+- word novels during the first 100 days of 2019.
And for goodness’ sake, don’t let any of my nonsense about numbers intimidate you or bother you. Just Write and keep it fun and you’re well ahead of the game. Whatever the game is.
***
A kind of neat quote:
“I had always carried the intrinsic suspicion that Los Angeles is a concrete collision between fiction and reality.” — Nicolas Obregon on why L.A. and its crime fiction still grips us.
Sounds to me like a good reason to write more of it. Just sayin’.
***
A Dog Tale: Puppy Jail and Writing
About an hour ago I was writing along just fine when my chihuahua exploded.
I hadn’t heard the UPS guy come up (that’ll set him off) and I hadn’t heard the trash truck (that happens on Mondays). Now, when my chihuahua barks, he sounds like a rottweiler who’s standing right behind you.
His entire body literally leaves the ground. And even when I’m out here in the Hovel (about 200 feet away) with the door closed, I can hear him plainly. It’s hard to write through that.
So I went outside to see what he was barking at.
Turns out, the friendly neighborhood vet was visiting at the corral to take care of the hooves of my neighbor’s horses.
Yeah, that’s all. And my doglet was going nuts.
So I went to the yard and told him to stop barking. (You know how well that worked.)
So I put him in the house and closed the door.
As soon as I was out through the gate, he started barking again.
I was afraid he might shatter the windows (he really is that loud), so I went back to the house and told him to go to bed. He sleeps in a kennel.
He bargained with me, ran into the bedroom and flopped himself on a big pillow on the floor.
So I said, “Okay,” (pointing at him) “but if you start again, you’re going to bed.
Soon as I was out of the gate.
Now, his kennel is in my wife’s office, but that was fitting. After all, the lady cats were in the bedroom watching all the drama, and I saw no reason to punish them for his transgression by closing him (and them) in the bedroom.
So I went back in, picked him up, and carried him to Puppy Jail. It still his kennel, but since it’s in my wife’s office (not the bedroom) it’s a kind of solitary confinement.
Then for good measure, I closed the door to my wife’s office.
No more barking. I went back to the Hovel and the novel.
About an hour later, it was time for a break, so I peeked outside.
The vet was gone, so I ambled up to the house again singing “Time to let the Casey out the Puppy Jail.”
He was thrilled to hear it, and when I let him out, he looked at me as if he’d been locked away for 25 to life.
I went to my business computer to send my wife an email to tell her what I’d done, and guess what?
The instant he got outside, his inner rottweiler came out again and he started barking. At absolutely nothing.
So I gave up and came back out here. Sigh.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “List of Classic Workshops and Lectures” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/list-of-classic-workshops-and-lectures/.
See “Business Musings: I Had No Life (The December Process Blog)” at https://kriswrites.com/2018/12/19/business-musings-i-had-no-life-the-december-process-blog/.
See “The First Step Act … and Second Chances” at https://www.leelofland.com/the-first-step-act-and-second-chances/.
For last week’s Reedsy newsletter on marketing, see https://us3.campaign-archive.com/?u=13026cbe4253ebdc8419567b4&id=193f9690d4.
The Reedsy newsletter that came in today is titled “[Series marketing Part 2]: The #1 mistake authors make with ads.” I STRONGLY urge you to visit https://www.reedsy.com and sign up for their newsletter. I won’t always remember, a week after the fact, to pass along what they wrote the week before.
Fiction Words: 5534
Nonfiction Words: 920 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 6454
Writing of Cazadores (novel, tentative title)
Day 1…… 4917 words. Total words to date…… 4917
Day 2…… 1873 words. Total words to date…… 6790
Day 3…… 3453 words. Total words to date…… 10243
Day 4…… 4191 words. Total words to date…… 14434
Day 5…… 3527 words. Total words to date…… 17961
Day 6…… 5534 words. Total words to date…… 23495
Total fiction words for the month……… 48005
Total fiction words for the year………… 506688
Total nonfiction words for the month… 12550
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 184236
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 690674
Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 10
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 3
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 36
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 7
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………… 193
Short story collections…………………………………………………… 31
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