In today’s Journal
* Yesterday, and Spell Checking
* Verisimilitude
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Yesterday, and Spell Checking
After I filed TNDJ, I started the day yesterday by spell checking the complete (thus far) 2024 Journal Archives.
I was surprised. The process took about 15 minutes or a little longer. Of course, I caught glimpses here and there of what I’d written.
MAN there’s a lot of knowledge in those posts, from January 2, 2024 all the way through to October 23, 2024.
This year’s archive alone is already 297,869 words in 914 pages. And that’s not including several posts I left out because they were only for paid subscribers.
I’m thinking about going back through my website at some point and including those paid subscriber posts, then offering that for sale as another “year in the life of a fiction writer” book. Or not. I haven’t decided yet.
Or maybe I’ll offer the full archive as a “ten years in the life” book.
Of course, anyone can download ALL the Journal archives all the way back to 2014 free on the Journal website in downloadable, searchable PDF files.
But there are a ton of fiction writers and would-be fiction writers out there who know nothing at all about the Journal. I think some of you would agree, they’re missing out. Maybe you can share with other writers you know. (Thanks to those of you who already do that.)
Or maybe at some point I’ll glean only the topics out of all the Journal posts and publish that.
Anyway, running that spell check and how long it took also reminded me again of how fast the word counts grow if you keep coming back and putting in time in the chair.
Dedication and persistence really are the key. Well, that and letting the characters tell the story that they, not you, are living.
As I write new issues of TNDJ, I intend to post each issue (beginning with this one), to the website first, then to the archive. I’ll spell check it there before reposting it on the website and then posting it to the TNDJ Substack. So the version you receive in your inbox should be clean in the future.
I also had another medical appointment in Sierra Vista, so with apologies to my copyediting client, I turned my attention to the novel to get as much written as I could before the trip.
So I had that med appointment, including another fasting session (those really screw me up), and another weak day of writing. Another day with fewer than 2000 words. (Hey, Harv, you want some cheese with that whine?)
And this week, our electrician and techs from the regional electric company will finally show up to finish their job of updating the box and the electricity in the house and connecting a new line to the Hovel.
And then I have another doc appointment on the 30th for the payoff where she’ll tell me what I’ve won. (grin)
I’m still writing every day, but fortunately all the nonsense will be behind me soon and I can get back to consistently doing what I love.
Anyway, I expect the novel to wrap sometime in the next few days. Just depends on how much time I’m able to devote to it. I’m kind’a glad I’ll have another one in the can, but I also know from long practice I’ll miss the characters.
But who knows? Maybe they’ll pop in again to invite me to participate in another story sometime. That’s how it works when you give yourself over to the characters to record part of their life. In other words, when you write their authentic life. The characters whisper, “Psst! Hey, c’mere a minute.” And the minute stretches into several wonderful days.
Anyway, while I’m involved in that process, I might miss posting to the Journal for a day or two here and there. Or I might post something silly like this.
Verisimilitude
In Of Interest today, Vin Zandri talks about writing off the rails. I’ll let him explain what he means.
He also mentioned one of my favorite words: verisimilitude. It means to layer on detail in describing a character or a setting in a scene. Or as Vin puts it, “to tell the truth.”
Anyway, if “thin writing” is a bad thing, verisimilitude is the fix.
But here’s the thing: If you write into the dark—if you write what the characters give you as opposed to thinking your way through it—you’ll have no problem with “thin” stories. Your fiction will be rich and full.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 730
Writing of Blackwell Ops 29: John Quick
Day 10…. 3557 words. To date……. 30723
Day 11…. 3235 words. To date……. 33958
Day 12…. 1937 words. To date……. 35895
Day 13…. 1885 words. To date……. 37780
Fiction for October……………………. 69266
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 810774
Nonfiction for October……………….. 23020
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 326610
2024 consumable words……………… 961423
Average Fiction WPD (October)……… 3148
2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 14
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..……. 96
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………..… 255
Short story collections…………………….….. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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