A Life Hack, and a Short Post
November 13, 2024 by Harvey
In Today’s Journal
* A Life Hack for Writing
* About Comments
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A Life Hack for Writing
Short post today. I’m still planning a post—or maybe even a series of posts—soon on the importance of Pacing and how to do that.
Some segments of that post (or posts of that series) will be next-level, down in the weeds stuff. So stay tuned.
But for today my focus will be on fiction and doing what I can before the lights go out. After that I’ll type on battery power.
And if the story’s racing along and the laptop battery fades (here’s the hack), I’ll sit in my pickup, plug in to my AC adapter, and continue with the story.
I’m also planning (yes, again) to post fewer times per week. From what I can tell, daily posts are too much for many of you, and sometimes posting every day taxes my widdle bwain.
About Comments
At least one reader had trouble leaving a comment on the substack version of yesterday’s post.
If you have the same problem, my apologoes. It’s a substack thing. If substack sends you a link that seems odd to you, email me. I’ll check it out for you on a non-essential computer.
But if you experience a problem with Substack, you can always click on the original post at the Journal Website and leave your comment there.
As I wrote yesterday, much as I enjoy receiving your emails, when you leave a comment or question on either Substack or on the original post at the website, it helps with my discoverability on those platforms. So thank you in advance for taking a moment to leave a comment.
The Writing
Oof. Body shot. A second short day of writing in a row.
Yesterday I finished the short story I started on Monday. Then we went to the store in Sierra Vista (my stupid idea), then came back and started my next novel.
But I wasn’t thinking straight when I proposed that trip. We got back later than I expected, so although I got a good start on the novel, it wasn’t nearly as big a day as I hoped it would be.
Today I intend to barricade the door to the Hovel, mute notifications for my email (if I have electricity I’ll check during breaks), and do nothing but write fiction.
Anyway, it feels great to have my story for Bradbury wrapped up so early in the week. And it feels great to have gotten such a quick start on the next novel.
By the way, if the name of the operative on this one looks familiar…
I keep a list of possible names for future Blackwell Ops characters down below the ‘meat’ of my boilerplate text document for TNDJ.
As I was glancing over that list yesterday, I happened across the name ‘Jack Temple’ in the title of a post-apocalyptic story I started last week. And the character said “Hey, I’m a Blackwell Ops operative.”
I recognized him immediately. (grin)
So this is a different character than the ‘Jack Temple’ in the title of that post-apocalyptic story. That story was based on a great story starter, but if or when I go back to finish it, the POV character will be someone else.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Episode 792: How to Make Money (redux)!
Don’t Make This Conflict and Tension Mistake Some good advice, but try to ignore the critical-mind stuff this writing team preaches. Just write the story.
(Repeat) Announcing the 2024 Kobo Writing Life Indie Cover Contest
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 580
Writing of “Conspiracy to Commit—”
Day 1…… 1494 words. To date……. 1494
Day 2…… 0879 words. To date……. 2373 done
Writing of Blackwell Ops 31: Jack Temple
Day 1…… 1620 words. To date……. 1620
Fiction for November…………………. 35318
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 872450
Nonfiction for November…………….. 11800
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 346220
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,042,709
Average Fiction WPD (November)…… 2943
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 16
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 98
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.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. 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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I don't read every day due to work and other things, but I always enjoy to catch up with the posts. I don't feel I have the right to tell you how many times per week you should write the journal, but please, do it for a long time. And of course, writing is a higher priority, so I totally understand if you skip some days because of this. Oh, what am I talking about...
Pacing is an interesting topic. I stay tuned. ;)
I feel like my creative side of brain can handle pacing. Whenever the story needs to slow down, it changes the sentence lengths. And depth... Oh, it's really is a next level stuff.
After I finish the two short story edits I have on my plate, I don't think that I'm going to write any more short stories for anthologies, unless something just really pops up fast and easy. Anthologies have editors, and they want you to change bunches of stuff to fit their "vision" of the anthology. And while that probably helps make all the disparate writer's stories come into a cohesive whole, it hammers my Creative Voice, and makes it sad.
I do still have one short story out in Limbo that I submitted a year ago, but who knows if that anthology will ever get off the ground, as the people running it have been sick and having life issues. I also had a short story rejected because it didn't fit with the theme of the anthology, and I'll probably add to it and see if it wants to be a novella. Then I'll publish it myself.
Just have to get the brain working...