Bradbury, Writing, and Writem Part 2
December 9, 2024 by Harvey
In Today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* The Writing
* The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
* Writem et al (Part 2)
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“When a woman tries, she’s got it all over us guys in pretty much every way. Lucky us.” Harry Tidwell in Blackwell Ops 32: Harry Tidwell
“There are lots of people teaching/talking about plotting, discovery writing, pantsing, etc…and you don’t really hear them talking about “the Other side” ie. WITD. In fact, many of them will even say that anything that isn’t ‘their’ brand of writing isn’t valid. So, preach away, you are doing fine.” Tiffanie Grey, subscriber
The second Quote of the Day speaks for itself (Thanks, Tiff). “Discovery”writers generally use “signposts,” so basically light plotting. And “pantser” is a flat-out derogatory term. It would be the equivalent of “plodder” for plotter.
The Writing
Since the novel’s going well and will probably wrap today, I thought it appropriate to quote the POV character from that novel in the first Quote of the Day above.
I also wrote a short story for the Bradbury challenge yesterday (yes, at practically the last minute, see below) even though I usually write one much earlier in the week.
I intend to start my 103rd novel today or tomorrow. Woohoo! As I mentioned to a Writem author during our exchange of views (see below), I seldom take more than a day or two “off” between novels, and when I do I’m antsy to get back to writing fiction.
All of that is due to me attempting to follow Heinlein’s Rules (despite how easy it sounds, remaining seated on that particular horse is incredibly difficult) and writing into the dark.
The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting
The whole point of the Challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer.
There is no cost. The only requirement is to write at least one short story per week.
During the past week, in addition to whatever other fiction they’re writing, the following writers reported these new stories:
Balázs Jámbor “Dawn of romance” 3000 Romance
Vanessa V. Kilmer “Mr. Ed” 5421 speculative
Adam Kozak “The Crossed Keys” 6025 Adventure
Harvey Stanbrough “The Demise of Ramón Vargas…” 1501 Western
Dave Taylor “The Mountain Retreat” 6,697 Thriller/Conspiracy
Frank Theodat “Death of The Mad Man 1700 Corpo Horror
Writem et al (Part 2)
You can read Part 1
As many of you know, I used to tout writing into the dark occasionally in comments over at The Kill Zone blog, a venue virtually drowning in the myths.
I finally stopped even visiting over there because I’m not wild about closed minds and I don’t like being consistently on the bottom of a dogpile. Occasionally the writers there pass along some valid information. But typically you have to sift through the myths to find it.
But over the past few days I’ve been engaged in a genteel exchange—an actual conversation—with an anonymous author at Writem. I’ve appreciated that.
If you’re interested, you should be able to see that exchange thus far here. (After you read the first comment, click Show Replies to see the full exchange.)
It’s enjoyable to meet in an arena without either side drawing swords and where both sides have space to state their views.
The Writem author seems settled in his/her method of writing. I’m glad it works for him or her, but I will continue to preach the benefits of WITD.
Of course, I still won’t recommend any site that teaches the myths. Not because I don’t want to give the ‘other side’ equal time—those sites are so prevalent that they already have far more than equal time—but I’m sure they’ll continue to get along fine without my support.
However, I’ve copy/pasted the pertinent parts of my side of that exchange below. First, as I wrote during that exchange. As I’ve written in TNDJ before,
“I tried [WITD] as a very strong skeptic initially back in early 2014. My goal was to prove to myself once and for all it wouldn’t work. But to do that, I knew I had to bend myself to really try it. So I did. And to my amazement, it worked.
“I’ve never looked back. As a result, I write around 1200 wph and a steady 3000 – 5000 wpd mostly 7 days per week. I’m sorry to see each day end, and I look forward to the next day beginning so I can get back to the story.”
As I wrote later in the exchange,
“For me, writing is a great joy. I get to live vicariously all the lives I’m not able to live in this physical form.
“In a period western saga that spanned 22 volumes and around 60 years, at one point I rode a horse from Amarillo to a small fishing village in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. (The trip took a very enjoyable three months in story time.)
“In a generation space ship, I traveled from Earth to Terra 2, a planet light years away.
“I fought in wars from the Spanish Civil war up through Vietnam and Afghanistan, and
“At one point I set aside Heisenberg’s principle and shrank myself enough to visit the third electron from the nucleus of a carbon atom to find people very similar to ourselves. Finally,
“As a peasant in rural Mexico, I witnessed amazing things that exist only at that place where reality folds into imagination.
“And I’ve experienced dozens of other adventures through recording my characters’ stories.
“Why would I ever want to do anything else? We fiction writers are among the most fortunate creatures on Earth.”
My whole point with this and the previous post
is to urge YOU to try WITD if you haven’t done so or to try it again if you didn’t give it your best effort the first time. That’s the only way you’ll know for sure.
If you currently are mired in the myths, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
As I wrote yesterday (it bears repeating), the myths are so pervasive they are part of the very fabric of our society.
You can learn those myths and how to bend to unreasoning fear literally anywhere else on the internet in blogs and in “writing boards” and forums.
In fact, our world is so inundated with the myths that you literally can’t escape hearing about them even
in public and private education,
in television series and films,
in most how-to books on writing,
at writers’ conferences,
in genre conventions,
in writers’ groups,
in critique groups, and
literally everywhere else.
So if you want to remain true to writing an authentic story, you have to encounter the myths and wade through them or shove them aside, and continue to keep the faith in yourself, your characters, and WITD.
WITD is not the only way to write, but it is the only way to tell the true, authentic story that your characters are living.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Episode 799: “The Next Bestseller” Author Roundtable… You might want to save this one to watch at another time. It’s just under two hours long.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 1150
Writing of “The Demise of Ramón Vargas and Raul Obregón”
Day 1…… 1501 words. To date…… 1501 done
Writing of Blackwell Ops 32: Harry Tidwell
Day 1…… 3528 words. To date…… 3528
Day 2…… 3136 words. To date…… 6664
Day 3…… 4540 words. To date…… 11204
Day 4…… 6376 words. To date…… 17598
Day 5…… 3196 words. To date…… 20794
Day 6…… 3763 words. To date…… 24557
Day 7…… 3811 words. To date…… 28368
Day 8…… 3308 words. To date…… 31676
Day 9…… 1609 words. To date…… 33285
Fiction for December………………… 28130
Fiction for 2024………………………. 956051
Nonfiction for December…………….. 9770
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 372340
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,155,540
Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3905
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 17
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 101
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 268
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.
If you are able, please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!
WITD is like the old storytellers, not the Bards/Skalds/History keepers that repeated the same things generation after generation, so they wouldn't be forgotten, but the ones that made the world outside the firelight a little more exciting, a little more fun, a little scarier! They stoked the fires of exploration and ingenuity in the upcoming generations, and passed along tidbits of information within the stories. The pre-cursors of song, culture and music.
I'm looking forward to the start of the year, the wrapping up the old year along with the presents under the tree (okay, we currently don't have a tree, but I'm trying to actually decorate this year, things that the cats and dogs won't destroy! But, go with me for the sake of the metaphors.) And the tossing of old routines and old blockages along with sweeping out the dust of the old year before New Year's day to start fresh and unencumbered.
I have cover art and formatting to wrap up for some other authors, a couple of stories to finish and turn into anthologies, lists and tables to make (I'm not good at spread sheets), household knots to tie up and "stations" to create (Stations are going to be lists of steps to do something that I may not do for months, and so not to forget how to do them, and have to spend hours on youtube looking it all back up again, I'm going to record the "Stations", so they are ready for me, like an artist's taboret.) And the yearly Feng Xui cleaning that must be completed by December 31st.
And then... chomping at the bit, restless in the starting gate...I'm going to hit the track (metaphorically) with a headlamp on my forehead, and run into the dark (on horseback, because I don't like running). I'm pretty excited about it. And why not start now? Because I don't want the guilt that I'd feel if things aren't tidied up first. Quirk of my personality, maybe a girl thing, who knows?
I gave WITD a fair try in September and wrote the most fiction words in one month that I had ever done in such a short time! So, no more proofing the dough, it will be time to start baking!
I like the word "pantser." It brings to mind pilots in the early days of the airplane ss they barnstormed from small town to small town across the country.