All About Yesterday

September 15, 2024 by Harvey

In today’s Journal

* Correction
* Recasting a Story
* Finding a Novel
* A Personal Anecdote
* The Numbers

Correction

Yesterday I listed Adam Writes as an example of a good substack to theck out if you’re thinking of posting your writing online.

But I added the wrong URL. Here’s the correct link to Adam Writes. Check it out:

And sorry. I should have double-checked before I posted that yesterday.

Recasting a Story

I’ve said here before if you start a story and it doesn’t work, you can do one of two things:

• Either pitch it out altogether and write something new, or

• “recast it,” meaning write it again from scratch and see whether it works that time.

Yesterday I did just that. I completely recast a story I originally wrote a little over a year ago: “Penthouse Bound.”

I even complained in the Journal back then about how unhappy I was with it.

I accidentally happened across the story as I was searching through an older computer. I came across a file titled “Short Story Template 2.docx” and opened the file to see what the new template looked like.

And there it was. I didn’t remember the story, so I read through it. I was right a year ago. It was flat, squat and ugly.

But I still liked the idea of it, so I recast it (wrote it again from the ground up). Now I’m happy with it.

It’s included below in the Numbers, but it won’t be for the Bradbury Challenge because the new week hasn’t started yet. (grin)

Finding a Novel

Most of you know that my entire 22-volume Wes Crowley saga sprang from a short story I wrote for the Bradbury Challenge back in 2014 (“Adobe Walls”).

I never go “looking for” a new novel to write. I have so many ideas flooding through me that I don’t have to. I was all set to begin a new Blackwell Ops novel today.

But the experience with “Penthouse Bound” that I wrote about above started me thinking about two other short stories I had written long ago for the challenge.

I remembered that at the time I’d written them, I thought there was much more to each story, and that each would make an excellent novel.

So I looked for those too, and I found them.

I read over each of them again and decided again I had been right back in the day. Both would make good novels.

Now, I know of some writers who can write more than one novel at the same time, switching back and forth. But I’m not one of them. Once I’m invested in a POV character and his or her story, that’s it until the story’s finished. So I had to choose.

One story (“Beats All You Ever Saw”) has kind of an urban Oklahoma vibe. The POV character is an average but shocked guy who witnesses a crime at a nightclub but is not a victim himself.

When the short story ended, I still had no clue what he does for a living, etc., and the character was apparently in no mood to talk to me. I’m not into forced capitulation, so for the time being, I’ll pass on writing that one.

The other story, “No Better Day,” is set in the early 20th century in a wartime environment. It also has a kind of Hemingway vibe. I won’t say any more about that one—it’s available everywhere if you’re interested—but the voice of the POV character grabbed me. He has a lot more to tell.

Instead of completely recasting that story as I did with “Penthouse Bound,” I started the new novel with a sentence by sentence deep cycling session on “No Better Day.”

The original story was 2587 words (words brought forward). Now it’s 3730. I can hardly wait to see what today will bring.

So even with my youngest son visiting (both to visit and to get my internet working again) yesterday was a very good writing day, with 3601 new words on the day.

By the way, a quick thank you to my wife and son for recognizing my obsessive compulsion (yeah, I’ve got a “disorder”) to write fiction and being okay with it. (grin)

A Personal Anecdote

Finally, yesterday I posted “On Wrter’s Block and Ray Bradbury”. If you haven’t read it, check it out.

In that post, I mentioned having created a streak of 70 or 72 weeks (I forget which) without failing to write at least one short story per week.

While I was engaged in that long-running streak, one Sunday, with my personal deadline (Sunday Midnight) quickly approaching, the fear of how I’d feel if I didn’t write a short story that week was so strong that I sat down and wrote a short story titled… (you guessed it)”Deadline.”

No doubt some readers didn’t like that one—by then I was practiced at not giving naysayers a second thought—but I’ve also received several comments over the years about how “good” it was.

During that time too, I wrote a story titled “Old Suits.” I personally thought it was maybe the absolute worst short story I’d ever written.

But about three weeks after I published “Old Suits” alongside what I personally thought were much more “worthy” stories in a collection, a reader emailed me from Europe to say how much she enjoyed it, that it reminded her of Hemingway’s stories. Go figure.

When my streak finally ended, that wasn’t because of fear either. It was because I foolishly ended it myself, on purpose. What a moron, eh?

Intentionally ending that streak remains a big regret, and I pride myself on not having many of those.

Finally, back to you, Writers: Just think. If I’d simply let that streak keep running. I’d have around 900 short stories today instead of 240-something.

I hope you’ll learn from my mistake.

Talk with you again soon.

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 920

Writing of “Penthouse Bound”

Day 1…… 2458 words. To date…… 2458 (done)

Writing of No Better Day (novel, tentative title)
Brought forward……………………… 2587

Day 1…… 1143 words. To date…… 3730

Fiction for September…………………….. 43231
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 658338
Fiction since October 1…………………… 827019
Nonfiction for September………………… 14710
Nonfiction for 2024……………………….. 289550
2024 consumable words…………………. 813512

Average Fiction WPD (September)……… 3087

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 13
2024 Novellas to Date……………………. 0
2024 Short Stories to Date………………. 9
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 95
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………. 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………. 246
Short story collections……………………. 29

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. 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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