A Possible Recast in My Future

In Today's Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Need a Website?
* Dean Wesley Smith
* BO-42: Sam Granger
* A Possible Recast in My Future
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

"Why next year? I try to teach writers to look ahead, so I am going to show you how it is done." Dean Wesley Smith

Need a Website?

Okay, I won't be taking advantage of the BookBub author website builder I mentioned in yesterday's TNDJ, but I did check it out, and I do highly recommend it.

The setup was hyper easy and quick. The cost (currently at 50% off) is only $4.99 per month. Note that you'll also have to register a custom domain name in order to have the site go live.

Anyway, you should be able to check it out here.

Dean Wesley Smith

and I have been in touch re my current streak of having written and published 19 novels in 38 weeks (so one every two weeks).

See his plan for next year in Of Interest. As part of publishing 75 "major books" for his 75th year on the planet, he says he plans "to write one novel every two weeks for 26 weeks."

So that would be 13 novels plus what he's doing with Smith's Monthly, short story collections from the stories he's writing in his challenge this year, and Pulphouse Magazine.

I'm not sure whether he meant he'll write 13 novels (one every two weeks for 26 weeks) or 26 novels on the year (52 weeks).

Note that I gave myself considerable leeway with my own goal to write 22 novels on the year. Even two per month would be 24, but one every two weeks would be 26.

Whatever the case, whoop! You go, Dean!

Blackwell Ops 42: Sam Granger

went live on Your Morning Serial this morning at 5 a.m. Arizona time!

Around 200 writers subscribe to TNDJ. If you're learning about writing from me, it would only make sense to read my latest work, especially when I'm handing it to you free of charge in bite-sized daily posts.

You'll get the complete novel in the first 13 days of May, about the length of time it took me to write it.

Visit Your Morning Serial and subscribe free!

A Possible Recast in My Future

From the "I've Never Done This Before, But" Department:

Back in March-May 2020 I wrote a 'they came here' SF novel (my 48th novel, over 89,000 words) and then a sequel (my 49th, just under 62,000 words). I published those respectively in April and May 2020, but I wasn't happy with the first novel. At All.

About a third of the way through writing the sequel, I realized the opening and subsequent events of the first novel would have been much better if only I'd guarded more closely against a critical-mind intrusion.

That novel was so insignificant that I had to find the cover on StoneThread Publishing in order to remember the title.

To my memory, that's the only major story I've ever written that I really regretted not throwing out and recasting at the time.

So now I'm thinking about doing just that.

I'll leave the old novel and its sequel up (Heinlein's Rule 5) as a marker of my skill level at the time. But I'm seriously considering running again with the same idea that served as the story starter for that first novel and recasting it from the beginning.

Not that I have a lack of story ideas, but that one really appeals to me. I can hardly remember the gist of the last novel I wrote, much less the story idea that spurred it. Yet I'm still thinking about the idea that spurred that first novel 5 years ago.

Of course, the recast of the first novel will lead to a different version of what happened in the sequel. This time through I'll probably just continue writing so the recast first novel will tell the whole story.

If I do this, of course, I'll talk about that process here off and on and report my progress in Numbers below.

To be clear, this won't be a rewrite.

I'll read over the opening of the original novel to get the story idea fresh in my mind, and then I'll open a new document and write the new novel from scratch: hence, "recast."

And if I'm able to identify the readers who bought that piggy little first novel, I'll probably send them the new one free of charge as a way of saying, "Oops. Sorry. Here's the actual story." (grin)

Of Interest

Update on Challenge

Covers, Interiors, and Kickstarter Design

Why So Many Southern Homes Have Blue Porch Ceilings

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 760

Writing of Blackwell Ops 43: Sam Granger | The Quiz Master

Day 1…… 2242 words. To date…… 2242
Day 2…… 3315 words. To date…… 5557
Day 3…… 3192 words. To date…… 8749
Day 4…… 3439 words. To date…… 12188
Day 5…… 3017 words. To date…… 15205
Day 6…… 4041 words. To date…… 19246

Fiction for April……………………….. 111463
Fiction for 2025………………………. 378413
Nonfiction for May………………........ 760
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 101850
2025 consumable words…………….. 473753

Average Fiction WPD (March)……... 3715

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 9
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 26
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 113
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 296
Short story collections……………………. 29

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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Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.