Please Think Long and Hard

October 22, 2024 by Harvey

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Three Great Resources for Writers
* An Interesting Writing Day
* Please Think Long and Hard
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“The strength of fiction is series and hooking readers into a series.” Dave Chesson (the Kindlepreneur) in an interview (see Of Interest)

Three Great Resources for Writers

All writers are different, so I’m not gonna talk about these. I just want to mention them and provide the links. You can explore each of them on your own:

Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLI)

Selfpublishingadvice.org/ratings​​ (Also from ALLI. But please bear in mind “self publishing” actually means publishing your work yourself as an indie publisher.)

Writer Beware​ This is an ongoing listing of people and organizations to avoid.

An Interesting Writing Day

Yesterday wasn’t a great writing day, but it was a really interesting writing day.

Remember that conundrum I mentioned in “Once in a Blue Moon” yesterday? I was wondering whether I’d written past the end of my current novel? The story had wrapped, yet it felt incomplete.

Yesterday morning, I decided to sit down and cycle through the whole thing from the beginning. I wanted to be sure the story was complete, and I thought something in the body of the story would give me the answer.

It did. My gut-feeling wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t written past the end at all. I had skipped over part of the character’s story that he wanted to convey. And I learned exactly where that skip had occurred.

As I cycled through the novel, which currently contains 22 chapters, the opening of Chapter 12 leapt off the page at me.

I had used that opening to skip ahead and introduce the operative’s last assignment, yet I presented it as only his fourth assignment. Those of you who are familiar with Blackwell Ops know an operative who has been with the company for almost nine years would have engaged in far more than four assignments. Duh.

So I copy-pasted that opening (the first 337 words—yes, I counted them) from the old Chapter 12 to a new Chapter 12. Then I started writing the rest of that chapter.

The “inserted” part of the story will probably take anywhere from three to five or six chapters or more. Shrug. Just depends on what happens. The story will go where it goes. Eventually, when I meet up with the old Chapter 12, I’ll change the chapter numbers from there down, cycle through the remainder, and the book will be finished.

I wish I was still teaching live seminars. This would be an excellent example of what can happen if you don’t slow down and take your time. I could even use this manuscript to show participants exactly what I’m talking about.

This has never happened before, but it’s a really cool example of what I said yesterday about every novel writing differently. So this particular problem was kind of fun.

Anyway, I didn’t add anything to the short story I started on Sunday at all—actually, it might become my next novel, so I have removed it from Numbers below—and I wrote less than 2000 words on the novel yesterday.

On the upside, I’m totally stoked to hear the rest of this character’s story.

Please Think Long and Hard

I don’t do politics in TNDJ. That isn’t my job. TNDJ is here only to pass along information, mostly about writing fiction.

In this segment, I will vary a bit. I will not recommend, or recommend against, any political candidate, but I will pass along some unbiased information. And this one bit of advice:

Think long, hard, and deep before you raise your right hand and take an oath.

An oath goes far beyond even a personal promise. To take an oath is to give your most solemn word, an utterance by which you declare your dedication to a concept. Once an oath is uttered by a person of integrity, it lasts a lifetime.

For a person of integrity, an oath doesn’t bow even in the face of death or the infliction of unmitigated physical pain—physical torture—much less in the face of unreasoning, unrational, and unfounded fears.

Fifty-four years, two months, and seven days ago on August 15, 1970, I took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” (emphasis added). I do not regret having taken that oath.

One of the first concepts I learned in Marine Corps bootcamp was that my only task was to fight—and even to die if necessary—to preserve the Constitution of the United States. I was good with that.

Because the importance of preserving the Constitution, which safeguards and benefits hundreds of millions of citizens, far outweighs the importance of the individual.

In my opinion, that concept was valid when I took my oath, and it is valid today. That is the only personal opinion you will see in this segment.

Most often, the aforementioned “domestic enemies” of the Constitution appear in the guise of civilian federal politicians, but rarely openly. That isn’t their way.

Paradoxically, those politicians—who take the same oath—are citizens who benefit from the preservation of the Consitution, yet desire to keep other citizens from enjoying those same benefits. Usually they do so for monetary gain. They are not persons of integrity. Upright is not a matter of degree.

Today, one political party and some members of the other have vowed to revise or rewrite the first amendment of the Constitution to allow the banning of any speech with which they do not agree.

Simultaneously, that same political party is pressing to overturn or amend the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the power of the federal government to deploy the U.S. military to enforce federal domestic policy within the borders of the United States.

I fervently hope you will vote in the upcoming election. Doing so is our duty as conscientious citizens. But bowing to my own integrity, I will not suggest for whom you should cast your vote. Whom you vote for is none of my business.

However, as we consider our duty to vote, I do suggest we all think long, hard, and deep. I suggest we each weigh the good of nation and its citizens against our own self-interest.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Your self-publishing questions answered

Creator Spotlight: “Interview with Dave Chesson”

The Year 1969, in 5 Facts Some great story fodder, whether or not you lived through it.

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 1060

Writing of Blackwell Ops 29: John Quick

Day 1…… 1781 words. To date…… 1781
Day 2…… 3792 words. To date……. 5573
Day 3…… 3087 words. To date……. 8660
Day 4…… 3545 words. To date……. 12205
Day 5…… 2667 words. To date……. 14872
Day 6…… 1665 words. To date……. 16537
Day 7…… 3073 words. To date……. 19610
Day 8…… 5593 words. To date……. 25203
Day 9…… 1963 words. To date……. 27166
Day 10…. 3557 words. To date……. 30723
Day 11…. 3235 words. To date……. 33958
Day 12…. 1937 words. To date……. 35895

Fiction for October……………………. 67381
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 808889
Nonfiction for October……………….. 22290
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 325880
2024 consumable words……………… 958808

Average Fiction WPD (October)……… 3209

2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 14
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..……. 96
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.

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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