The Journal: Today, Yesterday, Sometime Later

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Topic: Today
* Yesterday
* Sometime later
* The Numbers

Quotes of the Day

“Saying that taste is just personal preference is a good way to prevent disputes. The trouble is, it’s not true. You feel this when you start to design things.” Paul Graham

“It takes confidence to throw work away. You have to be able to think, there’s more where that came from.” Paul Graham

Topic: Today in “Of Interest” is a link

to an article that purports to list “12 Signs You’re Still in the Learning Phase of Your Writing Career.” That should have been the whole title (though it should read “A learning phase, not THE learning phase), but it isn’t. The title begins with “Is Your Novel Ready to Publish?”

The answer to the question, if you’ve finished a novel and had it first-read and maybe copyedited, is a resounding Yes. A finished novel is ready to publish regardless of how young you are at the craft.

“But if I publish something that’s bad I’ll ruin my career.”

One, no, you won’t. You don’t have a career.

Two, “bad” is subjective. What you think is “bad” or mediocre, another reader will love. You can’t hear your own authorial voice because it’s with you 24/7. And that’s what will be in your work, if you don’t obey the myths and polish it off.

After he finished listing his Business Habits for Writers (better known as Heinlein’s Rules), he alluded back to Rule 4: Paraphrased he said, “If you finish what you write and submit it (today, publish it) you will find some publisher somewhere who will buy it (someone somewhere will read and enjoy it). And that “career” everyone worries about ruining will begin.

Make no mistake: If I had followed the advice is the article re whether I should publish my first novel, I would not today have the 11-volume Wes Crowley saga. In writing, you learn as you go. You learn as you practice. As Bradbury put it (again, paraphrased), you “jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.”

In reality, the article has nothing to do with whether your novel is ready to publish. In reality it is a good checklist to determine whether you’re still a Stage 1 or 2 writer.

The best yardstick I’ve seen for that is Dean Wesley Smith’s nonfiction book Stages of a Fiction Writer with a couple of minor changes: One, I recommend you forget about the necessity of being a “bestseller” to move from one stage to another. Whether you are or will ever be a bestseller is not within your control. It’s up to readers. The world of publishing is not what it used to be.

And Two, I added a Stage 5. Among active living fiction writers, in my experience Stephen King is pretty much alone in Stage 5. (Just to be clear, both of those changes are from me, not DWS.) You can also find the unedited version of Stages on his site at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/tag/stages-of-a-fiction-writer/.

Yesterday I read Dean’s novel Card Sharp Silver  (not yet available to the public). Great ending (my opinion). Then I listened to the final two videos posted in his Shared Worlds class and read the instructions. And a couple hours later, started a short story. It’s untitled as of this posting, but I wrote almost the first 3000 words.

Today, I’ll finish it, read it aloud, put it in the format he requires, and send it off today. Turns out I like challenges. Who knew? (grin)

Sometime later, I’ll also write another short story, one that occurred to me as I was reading the novel. However, I won’t send that one in. It includes, as a minor pivotal point, one aspect of the novel he won’t allow us to use in a story for the anthology.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Is Your Novel Ready to Publish? 12 Signs You’re Still in the Learning Phase of Your Writing Career” at https://annerallen.com/2021/02/novel-ready-to-publish-12-signs/ (via The Passive Voice).

See “Taste for Makers” at http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html. The guy says only one really stupid thing (no doubt an assumption he’s heard and chose to repeat) in the entire essay.

See “Herding Cats (Writers)” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/herding-cats-writers/. No, I’m not one of the writers he’s talking about in this article. On the points of following instructions (duh) and not caring what beginning writers think, I’m with him 100%.

I haven’t listed it for awhile, so See “Six Things Writers Need To Stop Worrying About” at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2019/07/five-things-writers-need-to-stop.html.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 750 words

Writing of “Untitled” (short story)

Day 1…… 2893 words. Total words to date…… 2893

Total fiction words for February……… 23009
Total fiction words for the year………… 120486
Total nonfiction words for February… 6840
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 32170
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 149013

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 56
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 215
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31