The Journal, Tuesday, November 6

Hey Folks,

RAmbling a little today, but it might be good. I never know. (grin)

The polling places opened out here right at 6, and my wife and I drove down to vote. Feels good. I hope those of you who are citizens of this nation voted as well.

Finally out to the Hovel at 7. I updated my reverse outline (much more on this later), then wrote around 1000 words, then headed up to the house.

Back to the Hovel at 9:30. I started writing, but hit a minor snag.

The WIP takes place in France (at least so far) and I was uncertain whether “madame,” “mademoiselle,” and “monsieur” should be capitalized when used in a formal setting.

So I emailed my friend Céline (a subscriber in France) and asked her advice on capitalization. Of course, she came through wonderfully as she always does.

We decided that, in a formal setting, such as when a servant is addressing the people he is serving, those terms would be capitalized. As an added bonus, I also learned if the female in question is older than about 16, the term would be “madame,” not “mademoiselle.”

But then “mademoiselle” USED to be the correct way to refer to “a single woman” and “madame” was for a married woman. And since my WIP is set in the early 1920s, I decided to go with “mademoiselle” for my female protagonist, who is (I believe) 28 but unmarried. Besdies, mademoiselle is such a pretty word, isn’t it? (grin)

By the way, this is in stark contrast to most style manuals in the US, which recommend the terms “sir” and “ma’am” not be capitalized.

Then again, I, not some style manual, am the writer. My rule of thumb has always been to capitalize any term that’s being used as a name. (grin)

For example, if Jim is a doctor, since you would capitalize his name, you would also capitalize any word that replaces his name. So in my world, both “Hello, Jim” and “Hello, Doctor” would be correct. (Or if you didn’t like him, “Hello, Creep” or “Hello, Quack” would apply as well.)

Of course, if you’d rather follow some arbitrary style manual, that’s fine with me.

Then I took a phone call from another friend, Robert in Texas, and we talked for a little while, mostly about writing. It was flat-out wonderful.

And from some little thing that was said during that conversation (I think we were talking about being “stuck” and writing the next sentence to get out of it), I realized something else:

Not only is a reverse outline important as an ongoing reference to what’s in your WIP, but it can also help launch you into the part of the story you’re writing on the current day.

You all know that when I sit down to write, first I cycle back through what I wrote the day before. Lately, I’ve been doing the same thing with the reverse outline.

Instead of updating it at the end of the writing day, lately I’ve been updating it with the previous day’s chapters when I first sit down to write. Summarizing the chapters I wrote yesterday helps launch me into the mood of the book today.

I love epiphanies! (grin) Onward and upward.

It wasn’t quite 11 a.m. when I returned to the Hovel and wrote the stuff above.

Today was a “keep coming back” day. I first considered stopping after only the first session. I took a break and decided to push ahead.

Then I almost stopped at the end of a chapter. But I wasn’t quite to the 20,000 word mark and had written only around 1900 words on the day.

I wanted to move to at least over 20,000 words. So I took a break and went back again. And my wonderful characters threw me a curve.

So it was a pretty good day, and I’m going to stop while the current scene is running. There is no better advice I can give you than to Just Write the Next Sentence. (grin)

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Note: If you follow the Journal every day, the first two items below might be repeats.

See “‘That’ You Write vs. ‘What’ You Write” at http://harveystanbrough.com/pro-writers/that-you-write-vs-what-you-write/.

See “Learning from Other Writers” at http://harveystanbrough.com/pro-writers/learning-from-other-writers/. A little cross-polination here, but this is a great post that should be bookmarked around the world. (grin)

See “Solving Murders Using Human Nature: Are Detectives Plotters or Pantsers” at https://www.leelofland.com/solving-murders-using-human-nature-are-detectives-plotters-or-pantsers/.

See “First Page Critique: Floating in Space” at https://killzoneblog.com/2018/11/first-page-critique-floating-in-space.html. For openings and grounding the reader.

Fiction Words: 3286
Nonfiction Words: 740 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 4026

Writing of Consequences (Nick 4)

Day 1…… 3894 words. Total words to date…… 3894
Day 2…… 4701 words. Total words to date…… 8595
Day 3…… 1941 words. Total words to date…… 10536
Day 4…… 2577 words. Total words to date…… 13113
Day 5…… 4870 words. Total words to date…… 17983
Day 6…… 3286 words. Total words to date…… 21269

Total fiction words for the month……… 21269
Total fiction words for the year………… 399799
Total nonfiction words for the month… 3700
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 154806
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 554355

Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 8
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 3
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 34
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 7
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………… 193
Short story collections…………………………………………………… 31