The Journal, Wednesday, October 16

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Yesterday (for those interested)
* For anyone enrolled
* Today
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“Psychological and emotional challenges are always interesting.” Laura Benedict in “Afflicted” at the Kill Zone blog.

For those interested in my writing process, I thought I’d share something brand new, at least to me. This has never happened to me before.

I knew something didn’t feel right about my WIP, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Frankly, it was driving me crazy. I thought it might just be the result of all the little life rolls (life ripples?) I’ve been going through for the past few months.

Yesterday, I skipped back to the place that my intuition said was giving me the problem. I’d already read over the manuscript three or four separate times, and each time the “problem” felt like it was in that area.

So yesterday, instead of reading through the whole thing again, I went to that specific area. And it finally hit me.

In a few sentences (weeks ago), I’d written the intro to an action scene. Only I hadn’t recognized it as the intro to an action scene. As a result of not recognizing it, I’d continued the story from there, but omitted a scene that my character wanted included.

So yesterday I finally started writing in earnest again. But I’m out of practice. Instead of taking a break at the one-hour point, I wrote straight through for two hours and logged almost 1900 new words. And exhausted my brain.

I have to get back into practice. I hope to log at least three separate writing sessions today. We’ll see.

Today this is coming to you late so I can write more before I post it. The “Fiction words today” below reflects my fiction from yesterday and today.

The story is flowing again. Now (at last) I can get back to following the characters as they run through the story.

For anyone enrolled in Dean’s Shared Worlds class, I just listened to the first vids. Very interesting (no surprise there), but though the introductory video was normal volume, the next five were very quiet.

I’ve emailed Dean to remind him to set his mic to stereo (he sometimes forgets). So if the vids are almost too quiet to hear, bear with it. It’ll get better. (grin)

Today I actually got a lot done. I wrote for only one session, but I also gleaned a second short story out of my WIP. So when I do finally finish this one, I will have at least three publications: the novel and two short stories. (grin)

Of Interest

See “Afflicted” at https://killzoneblog.com/2019/10/afflicted.html. Interesting.

See “What are the Seven Types of Conflict in Literature?” at https://blog.reedsy.com/types-of-conflict-in-fiction/. Useful as a conscious mind learning tool. I recommend reading the bolded list of types of conflict (let those seep into the subconscious) and leaving the rest to those who want to write from the conscious mind.

See “The Importance of Using Alt Text with Photos” at https://prowriterswriting.com/the-importance-of-using-alt-text-with-photos/.

See “A Sacred Space” at https://stevenpressfield.com/2019/10/a-sacred-space/.

The Numbers

Fiction words today…………………… 1118
Nonfiction words today…………… 510

Total fiction words for the month……… 3237
Total fiction words for the year………… 383468
Total nonfiction words for the month… 9000
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 271690
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 656276

Calendar Year 2019 Novels to Date…………………… 7
Calendar Year 2019 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2019 Short Stories to Date… 2
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 43
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 195
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31