In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* The Novel Wrapped
* Working from the Back Porch
* Oh, the Quote of the Day
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“Publish your words!” Vin Zandri
The Novel Wrapped
No, really. It wrapped. I did another spell check and sent it off to Russ (my excellent first reader). It’s already back, so I’m going to tend to that today.
I’m usually a little sad when a novel wraps, even knowing I’ll be writing another one soon. But I’m actually glad this one wrapped when it did, because this morning I’m …
Working from the Back Porch
If there’s something you really want to do, you don’t make excuses. You find a way to do it. This is what I mean when I talk about passion.
In the overall context of Writing Fiction, if you have a passion for writing, you’ll write. You’ll identify the problem, then solve it. If the problem is the ever-popular “time,” you’ll shift your priorities or rearrange your schedule or put off this or that other thing or person, and you’ll write.
In the current context, I wanted to write and publish a Journal entry this morning, so I figured out a way to do that. That’s why I’m coming to you from the back porch. It was either that or use my phone as a WiFi hotspot, and that would eat too much data.
Yesterday shortly after noon, power dropped off a cliff in the Hovel. Of course I checked the usual places (the circuit breakers, surge protectors, etc.) but they were all still on. Nothing was tripped.
I have three phases of power (three transformers) on a pole outside my house. Two phases feed into the house. One phase runs to the pump for the well around 200 feet away. From there, a tiny bit of it (20 amps) is diverted into the Hovel.
On that meager 20 amps, I run my computers, lights, fans, a portable, vented AC unit and a radio-signal repeater my son installed in the next building over from the Hovel. It’s a load.
The well pump is still working fine, so the problem is somewhere between there and the Hovel. But as I said, I checked everything and it’s all fine.
Gnomes?
Nope. Completely my own fault.
When we bought the house (the pump did not come with it, though we do have a 1/3 well-share) I should have had an electrician guy out here immediately to run at least 100 amps of power from the pole in my back yard directly to the Hovel.
I didn’t. I waited. As if waiting ever resolved anything. It doesn’t.
So for at least today and maybe the foreseeable future, I’ll be working from the back porch. That’s why I’m really glad the novel wrapped yesterday.
So I hope for today only, my responses to emails, etc. might be sporadic. For one thing, I have to carry this laptop inside now and then to plug it in and refill the battery.
Even I temporarily forgot the difference between necessities (food, water, shelter) and luxuries (everything else). We live in a goofy age, one in which luxuries have come to be seen as entitlements because we’ve become so used to them.
But they aren’t entitlements. We’re entitled only to what we earn and maintain. Period. I won’t say we’re even entitled to what we pay for, because these days even that statement would require a leap into lala land.
Oh, the Quote of the Day
What Vin said. Basically, it’s Heinlein’s Rule 4: Put it on the market.
There are very few actual Facts these days, but this is one of them:
Readers can’t pay you money to read something that’s still languishing in a file folder in your computer somewhere.
Follow Heinlein’s Rules.
- Write it.
- Finish it.
- Do not rewrite it. (You’ll make it worse.)
- Publish it.
- Keep it published.
Do that and you will be a successful writer.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
What the future holds for those born today Probable story fodder.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 680
Writing of Blackwell Ops 27: Sam Gentry
Day 1…… 3004 words. To date…… 3004
Day 2…… 2111 words. To date…… 5115
Day 3…… 1726 words. To date…… 6841
Day 4…… 2092 words. To date…… 8933
Day 5…… 1306 words. To date…… 10239
Day 6…… 2523 words. To date…… 12762
Day 7…… 3018 words. To date…… 15780
Day 8…… 1443 words. To date…… 17223
Day 9…… 3024 words. To date…… 20247
Day 10…. 2275 words. To date…… 22522
Day 11…. 1566 words. To date…… 24088
Day 12…. 2009 words. To date…… 26097
Day 13…. 2813 words. To date…… 28910
Day 14…. 4101 words. To date…… 33011
Day 15…. 3324 words. To date…… 36335
Day 16…. 2312 words. To date…… 38647 (done)
Fiction for August…………………….….… 38647
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 545694
Fiction since October 1………………… 770697
Nonfiction for August……………………… 18650
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 265660
2024 consumable words………………… 733300
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 12
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 94
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 241
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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