Practice Is Important

October 13, 2024 by Harvey

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* Practice Is Important
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Practice Is Important

This is a blast from the past, and a perfect followup to yesterday’s post on setting goals.
I originally posted this to the Journal back in June of 2018. I read over it with an eye toward updating it—and I did add to it a little—but the original post is kind of timeless.

For perspective, notice that in this post I mentioned having written “31 novels and around 200 short stories.” Today I’ll write my 255th short story and am writing my 97th novel. Obviously I had a shift in priorities, and now I’m back to writing short stories again as well as novels. (grin) It’s all Practice.

Part I — Rationale and a Harsh Truth About Hovering

As it is in all art, practice in writing is important. It’s also fun, if a little uncomfortable. But without practice, the writing craft and the writing itself goes stale.

Many writers still feel more comfortable “hovering” over a WIP. They write, then revise and rewrite, then polish, etc. (all conscious, critical mind stuff) in an attempt to make every word and every sentence perfect.

They might spend months or even years on a single novel.

But make no mistake: They hover because it’s easier, more comfortable, and less threatening to revise and rewrite the same piece over and over than it is to let it go and move on to the next story.

It’s always easier, if more boring, to remain in your comfort zone than to plunge into a new, exciting adventure.

Maybe that’s the secret: instead of cowering in the face of fear (Will my story, be good enough?) make up your mind to be bold and embrace the excitement of the unknown story as it unfolds around you and your characters.

But I understand being afraid. I used to bow to fear in writing myself. And I’ve experienced the same twinge in my gut that those careful, timid, outlining and plotting writers experience when, in rewriting and revising and polishing, they spoil the story.

All of that need to control the characters and their story is based on fear. All of it.

That’s a pretty harsh truth. But even when those writers won’t admit it to themselves, much less anybody else, deep inside they know it’s true.

Part II — Practice

So here we are, back to the basic premise: Practice Is Important.

Maybe the only thing that’s more important is persistence in practice.

Of course, that’s tempered with doing what works for the individual writer.

But be sure it actually works. If the end result is that you’re putting a lot of new words on the page, you’re onto something. If you aren’t, maybe you need to check in with yourself regarding what “works.”

Of course, we all have different lives with different requirements and different priorities. I can’t speak to yours, and I won’t try. I can only speak to my own. Here goes….

For the first few years I was writing fiction, I had a firm daily word count goal: 3000 words per day. For me, with breaks, that’s about 4 hours.

I hit my goal on most days, and I exceeded it often. When I missed, it was all right because the goal reset the next morning anyway. I wrote about 800,000 words of fiction in each of those years. For me, that was not excellent, but it was very good.

But after I settled into an easy rhythm with my writing, I thought I no longer needed the daily goal. I seemed to be writing 11 or 12 novels per year either way.

And I started reading advice from other pros I respect who advised taking a day or two “off” every week to “refill the well,” etc. I now know that’s pure nonsense.

You’re writing from your characters’ well, not yours. You’re writing the stories that they, not you, are living.

Anyway, after listening to all that drivel, I dropped my daily goal. I just let it go.

Bad idea. My practice lapsed.

Now, as we near the midpoint of this year [2018], I’ve written only 225,000 words of new fiction and just under 300,000 words of fiction and nonfiction.

So it’s time to adjust and reinstitute my daily goal.

With 31 novel and around 200 short stories under my belt, I’m going back to the basics.

Why? Because I want to get to the keyboard every day in the company of a character with a problem in a setting. My daily goal drives me to do that. So as with most things, much depends on how badly you want it.

And why would I want to take a “regular day off” anyway from doing what I love, what excites me and makes me happy? There are more than enough days when life intervenes.

Fortunately, a new year begins with each day. I’m not tied to the Jan 1 – Dec 31 time frame. None of us are.

But I do like to begin new things on the first day of a month. So beginning on July 1, 2018 I’m setting a daily word count goal again. It will be adjusted to the priorities as they exist in my life today.

[Note: Sometime later I let my daily word count goal lapse again, and again it showed in my production. So a month or two back in August or September 2024, I reinstituted my 3000 wpd goal again.]

Some argue that a daily word count goal adds pressure.

That’s true. But it’s only pressure to get to the keyboard. After that it’s all fun.

How about you? The last quarter of the 2024 is only 13 days old. Do you need to reassess, adjust and reset your own writing goals?

Part III — Putting It All Together

Of course, setting a new daily word count goal is tantamount to setting a new challenge. So if you set or reset yours, try to get it right.

By “get it right” I mean make the goal big enough to make you stretch. It shouldn’t be so easy that you know it’s a done deal, but it shouldn’t be so big that it feels overwhelming.

It feels good—both titilating and freeing, in a way—to have made this decision. I wish the same for you.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: “The American Presidency” Timely, and see his call for input in “A Little Help, Please.”

Fun Stuff Added for the Workshop Sale

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 1080

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

Fiction for October……………………. 39605
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 781113
Nonfiction for October……………….. 14030
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 317620
2024 consumable words……………… 922772

Average Fiction WPD (October)……… 3278

2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 14
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 17
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..……. 96
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………..… 254
Short story collections…………………….….. 29

I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too. 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 always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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