In today’s Journal
* Note
* The Right Equipment
* Writing Past the End
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Note
Yesterday I was running on too little sleep, so I didn’t write anything new for the Journal.
So today I offer up two more partial “old posts” I’d written sometime along the way. I thought I’d posted them before, but in a cursory search of the Journal, I found nothing. You will see them below.
Just a reminder—I’ll run this from now through April 30 to be sure everyone has the opportunity to read it.
Writing Better Fiction is still on sale for only $9 for all eformats, including printable PDF. On May 1, the price will increase to $14.
You can also still order a binder-ready paper copy from me for $25 (includes shipping). Simply email me with your request.
The Right Equipment
Having the right equipment is everything to a fiction writer, and especially one who is (or wants to be) prolific.
The right chair with adjustable armrests (at least up, down, side to side, tilt and angle-in), seat height and tilt, etc. is essential.
And no, you don’t have to spend a fortune. I bought the Oline ErgoPro Ergonomic Office Chair from Amazon for only $240. And after I wrote a review, I ended up with a lifetime replacement warranty. How’s that for cost?
Having the writing surface at just the right height is important too. I can’t tell you how many legs I’ve cut off tables and desks to make the surface exactly 27″ from the floor.
Having a separate monitor at eye level is important too, to save on neck and back strain. My business laptop faces a 22″ monitor and my writing ‘puter faces a 24″ monitor. (I no longer use the separate monitors, having made other adjustments, but doing so is something to consider.)
Maybe most important for me is the feel of the keyboard. In that way, I mimic one of my favorite writers, Harlan Ellison. He wrote on an Olympia SG3 electric typewriter, and when he passed away, he had several extras on shelves in his house.
I have written on an HP ProBook 11 and an HP X360, each with an 11.6″ diagonal screen and the identical keyboard. The keyboard is perfect for me.
The spacing between keys, the placement of the Delete and Backspace keys, the force it takes to depress the keys, etc. all enable my fingers to fly over the keyboard with few mistakes.
So whatever’s in my mind transfers without conscious thought to the page. I’m only barely aware I’m typing at all.
Which of course is what you want when you’re writing an authentic story without fear and without wondering where the story’s going. (grin)
Writing Past the End
A few (now several) years ago, while I was writing one of my Wes Crowley novels, the pace of my writing fell off a cliff after sliding down a steep slope. The writing went from easy and fast to slogging through mud to pulling teeth.
It had to be a critical voice issue, right? So I got up and walked away. In fact, I took a walk out back, if I remember right. I was gone for about a half-hour.
But on my way back, I remembered something I’d heard from Dean Wesley Smith: If your writing slows dramatically, you’ve probably written past the end. Go back and re-read (as a reader) what you wrote during your previous session and see whether the end pops out at you.
I took his advice and read back. Sure enough, I’d written past the end of a scene (and chapter) by a couple of sentences. After I deleted those sentences and put up the next chapter title, I was off and running again.
A few months after that, in another Wes Crowley novel, I wrote past the end of the novel, again by only a few sentences. But that time I was ready, so I caught it pretty quickly. That was back in 2015 or 2016.
Fast forward to present. (Note: As I said, this was an old post.) Blackwell Ops 8 was racing along fine.
Then it started giving me fits. I kept writing, but every word felt forced. I felt like the novel wasn’t long enough (critical voice) and it needed at least one more “assignment” scene (critical voice).
As a result, I tried and tried to restart momentum in the novel. I made four or five different attempts—meaning I wrote four or five different openings to scenes—to restart it, but still it was like slogging through heavy muck or pulling teeth.
Then, a few minutes after I went to bed as I was dozing off (so as I entered the subconscious alpha state), it came to me clearly: I’d written past the end of the book.
The next morning, I cycled back, found the ending and wrapped the novel. Miraculous stuff, writing into the dark. (grin)
*
I still feel as if I’ve posted those before, so we’ll conduct a mini-contest: If any of you find those posts, let me know. As a reward, you can take any of my nonfiction books free. (grin)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
19 Authors and Their Typewriters
AuthorsZen Check this out and get in on the ground floor. This is at least part of the future of marketing books.
Character Type & Trope Thesaurus: Nice Guy/Girl
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 890
Writing of Blackwell Ops 24: Buck Jackson Returns (tentative title)
Day 9…… 4375 words. To date…… 26876
Day 10…. 3243 words. To date…… 30119
Day 11…. 3394 words. To date…… 33513
Day 12…. 3225 words. To date…… 36738
Fiction for April…………………….….… 72999
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 298791
Fiction since October 1………………… 601847
Nonfiction for April……………………… 23750
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 152470
2024 consumable words……………… 451261
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 7
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 89
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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