In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* There are links to several
* Topic: What We Keep
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“Hahahahahaha!! What??? Me and you grumpy?” anonymous, a friend responding to yesterday’s Journal post
“I have no trouble accepting my own flaws. It’s other people who have a problem with that.” Wes Crowley
There are links to several very good articles in today’s “Of Interest” section. I hope you’ll take the time to click through and visit some of them.
Topic: What We Keep
For close to a year after I learned the technique of writing into the dark, my screen saver on my writing ‘puter read “Just Write the Next Sentence.” It helped, often and a lot.
Once I no longer needed the external reminder — once I was able to remember that bit of advice on my own — I deleted the screen saver. But I still keep other artifacts close at hand.
Back in the day, I enjoyed the occasional sip of whiskey. Once I found “my brand” I could do so without suffering so much as sluggishness the next day, much less a full-blown hangover or even a mild headache.
Today I keep a square bottle of one of my two favorite brands on my desk. It has only about an inch of the lovely elixir in the bottom of the bottle, yet I haven’t had so much as a taste of it for the past 20 years or so.
But, possibly owing to the silly Hemingway story that’s lodged in the back of my mind — he used to tell would-be writers all sorts of silly stories, including that he drank while writing — I keep the bottle on my desk as kind of a reminder that I’m a storyteller.
On one edge of my desk is a foot-long bit of mesquite root I found in the desert. To me, it looks remarkably like a lobster-sized scorpion, a reminder of my astrological sign and all the quirks that allegedly can be attributed to that.
And above my desk, hanging on a bare nail and occasionally swaying when the wind seeps through the necessary 1/4-inch opening along the side of the window directly behind it, is a print of a painting of some foreign café that’s reminiscent of Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night.
I’ve written at least three short stories as a result of glancing up at that print and “seeing” characters either moving along the street or in an alley behind the café or lying in a bed in a room above it.
These are not things that enable me to write. Writing is a purely physical action that requires only a working knowledge of the alphabet and a desire to form it into words — strictly speaking, when you create a grocery list you’re writing — and sentences and paragraphs (or stanzas) that eventually become short stories or essays or novels (or poems).
And they are not things that enable me to write well, by which I mean tell good stories in poems or short stories or novels. That is a skill that can only be developed over time with practice, which is the paradox that keeps most would-be storytellers out of the profession. But that’s a topic for another time.
My print and my bottle of hootch and my recently acquired mesquite scorpion are on or near my desk to remind me that — through births and life cycles and deaths and whatever comes afterward, if anything — I’m a writer.
So this morning as I glanced at my three objets d’art, I wondered whether other writers keep similar reminders on their desk.
What do you keep on your desk or elsewhere to remind yourself you’re a writer? Or to provide inspiration or story ideas? Please take a moment to stop by the actual Journal website at https://hestanbrough.com to share.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Writing Media Tie-in” at https://mystorydoctor.com/david-farlands-writing-tips-writing-media-tie-in/.
See “Why The Vastness of Space Workshop…” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/why-the-vastness-of-space-workshop/. Some gems here.
See “Limp, Reel, or Totter” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/01/limp-reel-or-totter.html. A very informative post chock full of story ideas. I left a comment if you’re interested.
See “The Art of Describing Characters” at https://www.authorspublish.com/the-art-of-describing-characters/.
See “George Saunders Wants You to Accept Your Flaws (Writing and Otherwise)” at https://lithub.com/george-saunders-wants-you-to-accept-your-flaws-writing-and-otherwise/. Thanks to KC.
See “The curious incident of the second-hand bookshop in lockdown” at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-01-12-the-curious-incident-of-the-second-hand-bookshop-in-lockdown/. Thanks again to KC.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 730 words
Writing of The Journey Home: Part 5 (novel)
Day 10… 3547 words. Total words to date…… 36277
Day 11… 3630 words. Total words to date…… 39907
Day 12… 1782 words. Total words to date…… 41689
Total fiction words for January……… 44907
Total fiction words for the year………… 44907
Total nonfiction words for December… 12400
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 12400
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 57307
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… X
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… X
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 54
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 214
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31