In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Topic: Write. Or Don’t. Whatever.
* Happy Hollowe’en
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” Raymond Joseph Teller
“How do you cope when almost no one notices? … How do you keep going when nothing seems to help? … Is it worth it to keep on keeping on?” anonymous past commenter at Kill Zone blog
Topic: Write. Or Don’t. Whatever.
In the first item in “Of Interest” today, James Scott Bell takes off on the questions posed in the second Quote of the Day above. I left a comment there. Then I thought I’d bring the comment over here and expand it a bit.
Back when I was speaking at a lot of writers’ conferences, I heard that last question at least dozens of times: “Is it worth it for me to keep writing?”
My usual answer was a shrug followed by, “Depends—are you a writer or not?” Then I’d leave him or her to ponder that decision.
My attitude hasn’t changed. Only the individual can decide whether continuing with any endeavor is “worthwhile.” If you’re a writer, writing is worthwhile. If you aren’t, it isn’t.
Once that’s decided, I can offer a few tips to the few folks left in the room:
1. It’s been said that the best promotion for a novel is to write the next novel. I agree wholeheartedly.
2. I’m a writer, so I write. Shrug. Writing is the most fun I can have with my clothes on. If it wasn’t, I’d find something else to do. For a writer, not writing is a kind of personal Hell.
3. What the reader likes (or not) is up to the reader, not the writer. Even the writer’s own opinion of his/her own story is still only one opinion, and it carries no more weight than any other opinion. Here’s the thing:
Even if you think your story sucks canal water from all 50 states, some reader out there will love it. If you publish it. If you don’t publish it, you’ll never learn this lesson. And if you think your story is a Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award contender, some reader out there will hate it.
But so what? Who cares? Caring about such silliness is not my department. My job is to write the thing in the first place.
4. I love to learn and I love to write. So I continually improve my craft, I write the story to the best of my current ability, and I make my book available and attractive.
4a. To help my book attract readers in the first place, I study appropriate genre covers and create an attention-grabbing cover.
4b. To further entice readers, I write the best sales copy possible. (Hint: No Plot Elements!) I recommend Dean Wesley Smith’s inexpensive How to Write Fiction Sales Copy. I recommend you buy a paper copy. You’ll dog-ear it.
5. Then I publish the thing, forget it, and go write the next story or novel idea that occurs to me.
So there it is: Given a good, well-written story, a good cover, and good sales copy, sales come when they come.
As a writer, I have the best job in the world. The writing and storytelling is the thing. My personal first “payment” is being the first to be entertained by the story. Everything else is gravy.
When I’m writing, I have a ton of fun. The most difficult and most disingenuous part of my job is convincing everyone else I’m “sweating blood in pursuit of my art” or some such nonsense. (grin)
As for whether it’s worth your while personally to “keep on keeping on,” only you can decide that. All I can say is Write. Or Don’t. Whatever. Hey, the world won’t stop spinning.
Happy Hollowe’en
Wow. Well, another month gone. I hope you’ll have a happy/spooky/enjoyable/cozy/loud/quiet Hollowe’en. Whatever slips an extra ace into your personal deck.
Talk with you again later.
Of Interest
See “How to Get Discovered When Nobody Knows Who The Heck You Are” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/10/how-to-get-discovered-when-nobody-knows-who-the-heck-you-are.html.
See “10 Earth impact craters you must see” at https://www.space.com/10-earth-impact-craters-you-should-visit.
See “On Regional Dialogue and Locations” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/10/on-regional-dialogue-and-locations.html.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 700 words
Writing of WCGN 5: Tentative Title (novel)
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for October……… XXXX
Total fiction words for the year………… 623282
Total nonfiction words for October… 12530
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 178490
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 801772
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 13
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.