Attitude of a Fiction Writer
In Today's Journal
* DWS Attitude of a Fiction Writer
* The Modes of Language
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
DWS' Attitude of a Fiction Writer
I read the following some years ago on Dean Wesley Smith's website and saved it. I thought I'd pass it along today.
1. Sustainability. Can you keep doing what you're doing now for 5, 10, 15 years?
2. Have Fun. The Secret to doing whatever: have fun. If what you're doing isn't fun, it isn't sustainable.
3. Never write to market.
4. Defend Your Work (even from yourself). Don't write by committee, don't read reviews, and don't put your work down.
5. Believe in your work. Do the best you can, release it, and do the best you can on the next story.
6. Dare to be bad. It takes more courage to write the next line, and then the next line, and then the next line, even if you don't know where it's going, and finish that story and put it out to readers. That takes real courage. You have to dare to fail. Dare to be bad.
7. Heinlein's Rules
8. Nobody cares. So you have complete and total freedom to write what you want.
9. Calm down. Don't compare [yourself or your work] to others, just do your own stuff. Chart your own course.
The Modes of Language
Just thought I'd toss this out there for anyone who doesn't already know it.
English is an accentual-syllabic language that may be presented in either of two modes: Prose and Verse. Every written communication in the English language is written in one or the other of those modes, or in a mixture of both.
Don't confuse verse, the mode, with poetry, the genre. Poetry, which is based on the poetic line, may be written in either prose mode or verse mode.
Likewise, essays, plays, short and long fiction may be written in either mode.
Prose is that mode in which the writer simply writes. S/he doesn't bother to manipulate the meter inherent in the language. Most fiction, essays, and all so-called free-verse (free of metrical manipulation) poems are written in Prose mode.
Verse is that markedly rhythmic or "sing-song" mode in which the writer carefully and intentionally manipulates the meter inherent in the language. Although some fiction and essays (what we typically call "prose") have been written in Verse mode without also being broken into the individual lines required by the genre of poetry, most Verse is presented in the poetry genre.
By way of illustration, if you removed all of the line breaks from Shakespeare's works (for example) you would have a fiction written in Verse mode. If you removed all of the line breaks from much of Alexander Pope's works you would have essays presented in Verse mode.
Why Verse mode? Because the meter in the writing still would have been intentionally manipulated by those writers, but the "poetry" designation would be removed along with the line breaks.
Okay, thanks for allowing me that digression. If you're interested in learning more about this stuff, I recommend picking up a copy of either Poetry Techniques for the Fictionist or The Craft of Poetry: Structure & Sound or both.
And yes, both links go to my online discount store at Payhip.
Okay, enough dabbling for today.
The Writing
Other than cycling, puttering very little with my current novel, and prepping this issue of TNDJ, I took another day off yesterday.
Of Interest
A Case Of Noir by Paul D. Brazill
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 570
Writing of Blackwell Ops 45: Sam Granger | Continuing Along the Ghost Trail
Day 1…… 2637 words. To date…… 2637
Day 2…… 3648 words. To date…… 6285
Fiction for May………………………... 78022
Fiction for 2025………………………. 456435
Nonfiction for May………………........ 22240
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 123330
2025 consumable words…………….. 573255
Average Fiction WPD (May)……...... 3001
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 11
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 27
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 115
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 297
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.
This can equally apply to nonfiction writers as well. I've been writing nonfiction for the most part, besides the odd fanfic story here and there, for nearly a year and I follow these to the letter.
The only part of Heinlein's rules I fall off with is putting your work out there. I move on to the next story so fast I sometimes forget to publish the previous one.
From an Afrofuturistic perspective, I get all emo. Here's what it feels like for me. https://open.substack.com/pub/mikekawitzky/p/beyond-everywhere