Yesterday, and Yesterday Again

by

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story and Novel
* Bradbury Challenge Reminder
* Yesterday, and My First Reader
* Yesterday the Novel Wrapped Again
* A Note on First Readers
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.” Clay Shirky

A New Short Story and Novel

“Title Goes Here” went live yesterday on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go! Read! It’s free!

If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin)

Also, TJ Blackwell: The Origin Story went live today on Amazon and all other ebook vendors. Of course, it is also available for less at StoneThread.

Bradbury Challenge Reminder

Today is Saturday. You who are in or want to join the challenge, please be sure to get your story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.

Setting a Sunday night midnight (or earlier in the week) personal deadline is the easiest way to ensure that.

Remember, the whole point of the challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer even as you expand your IP inventory. (grin)

Yesterday, and My First Reader

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that the novel wrapped on Thursday. That is true. However, I got in too big a rush.

I cycled over only the final chapter and the epilogue. Those didn’t “feel” complete, and as it turned out, they weren’t. Then I ran a spell check, saved the file in PDF, and fired the PDFoff to my first reader. I thought.

Only I forgot to attach the file. (grin)

And speaking of my first reader, he got on the road yesterday morning. He and his son are driving all the way from their home near Lubbock Texas to come visit with me. How cool is that?

Russ and I have become close friends over the past several months. I’m looking forward to finally getting to shake his hand. (No, I don’t do the fist-bump thing, or anything else that implies mistrust.) We’ll visit for a day before Russ and Michael head off to new climes.

I’ll send the PDF file of the book to him on Monday or Tuesday again, and this time I’ll actually include the file. (grin)

Yesterday the Novel Wrapped Again

Again? Yeah.

Having been given a reprieve by circumstance, yesterday (Friday) I wrote this post for Saturday and another one for Sunday.

Then I settled in to cycle through the whole novel. I don’t remember the last time I did that. The word count increased to 36261, an increase of 1009 words. So one more Numbers report today. And this is a typical, twisty-turny, emotion-filled novel.

I was going to construct a promo doc and create a cover and upload everything to Draft2Digital and Amazon, but I’ll do that today before Russ’ visit or on Sunday.

But upload without my first reader’s input?

Yeah, but not to worry. That’s another benefit of using the pre-order sales feature at those venues.

Since I’ll put up Blackwell Ops 23: Buck Jackson for pre-order to be released on May 3, I’m in the clear.

When Russ gets home safely and gets his input back to me regarding any misspellings, wrong words, inconsistencies, or places that bumped him out of the story, I’ll revise the mss slightly and upload the new .docx file.

Done and dusted. Thanks, Russ.

A Note on First Readers

Find one. A good first reader is an invaluable asset (in Manager-Speak) to keep you from looking like a complete moron to your readers.

Your first reader needn’t be a writer. Ideally, s/he will be an avid reader who also happens to enjoy your stories.

And s/he absolutely mustn’t be anyone whose driving desire is to change the content of your story or convey to you how s/he would have written it.

My response to input like that is a smile and, “I suggest you write your version exactly like that and publish it. Best of luck.” Then I don’t send that person anymore manuscripts.

The first reader’s sole responsibility is to read for pleasure, then report to you the blatant, ugly truth about anything that “pops out” at him or her as s/he reads, to specifically include any

  • misspellings (spell check is far from perfect)
  • wrong words (e.g., “waste” for “waist”)
  • inconsistencies (e.g., character’s wearing a t-shirt when he enters a restaurant and a button-down shirt when he leave)
  • confusing or awkward passages
  • places where s/he feels bumped out of the story

At this point, I often write “and the list goes on.” In this case, the list does not go on. That’s it.

On the last two items, the first reader might suggest alternatives. Those will most often serve as a catalyst for your own bad mind to reconstruct an awkward passage or include that one extra bit of information that clarifies things and keeps the reader in the story.

Most importantly, perhaps, the first reader is not a “beta reader” or “critique partner” or any such thing.

As I wrote earlier, s/he is only a friend or acquaintance who is willing to help keep you from looking like a moron to your readers. That is never a bad thing.

Of Interest

Nada.

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 890

Writing of Blackwell Ops 23: Buck Jackson

Day 1…… 1217 words. To date…… 1217
Day 2…… 2154 words. To date…… 3371
Day 3…… 5757 words. To date…… 9128
Day 4…… 5433 words. To date…… 14561
Day 5…… 2248 words. To date…… 16809
Day 6…… 3446 words. To date…… 20255
Day 7…… 2960 words. To date…… 23215
Day 8…… 3987 words. To date…… 27202
Day 9…… 2936 words. To date…… 30138
Day 10…. 5114 words. To date…… 35252
Cycling…. 1009 words. To date…… 36261 (done)

Fiction for April…………………….….… 36261
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 262053
Fiction since October 1………………… 565109
Nonfiction for April……………………… 10070
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 138790
2024 consumable words……………… 400843

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 will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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4 thoughts on “Yesterday, and Yesterday Again”

  1. This further convinces me that cycling is the go to technique for satisfying Heinlein rule 2 (You must finish what you write).

    When the negative crit-ego grows bored and itchy or even when the creator-child gets excited to move on to the new shiny, I cycle to entertain. Not to fix, of course, but let the character relate to the reader. As a putter-inner, myself, it definitely works for finishing. Catching up the details.

    I recognize your story was an unusual situation, yet a full story cycle might be the best layering and finishing technique for complex characters, like you have suggested in Writing Better Fiction, cycling to layer during a psychological suspense.

    I have done novel length full cycles, and it’s always fun to hear the character you thought you knew in the beginning say something even more interesting in their early-event reflections.

    • Thanks, Sebastian. Yeah the story is finished while I’m writing, but the cycling per-session helps a ton to make sure I didn’t leave out anything the characters tried to put in. It’s always their story. But the characters are only as “complex” or not as they actually are. Be sure to see tomorrow’s post. (grin)

  2. Ran across a study breakdown in “Neuroscience News” on creativity and the flow state which basically argues exactly what you’ve been proclaiming (for years) about WitD:

    https://neurosciencenews.com/creative-flow-neuroscience-25918/

    “…mastering and then mentally releasing one’s craft is key to achieving the high creativity and productivity associated with flow states.”

    Learn with the conscious mind, and then write with the creative unconscious…

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