Zoom Workshops? and Potpourri
July 20, 2024 by Harvey
In today’s Journal
* A New Short Story
* Zoom Workshops?
* Bradbury Challenge Reminder
* Correction on The Numbers
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A New Short Story
“The Odd Task” went live yesterday on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out.
If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin)
Zoom Workshops?
One writer, responding to my reminiscence and complaint in yesterday’s post regarding how much I miss teaching live seminars, suggested “if I’m serious,” I might consider teaching workshops or seminars remotely on Zoom.
First, yeah, I’m serious about missing the live interaction with students in live seminars. And I guess I could be classified as serious about teaching others craft techniques and the nuts and bolts of writing fiction.
After all, I’ve been writing the Journal or TNDJ for ten years now. And I’ve taught writing in college as an adjunct instructor and in those live seminars I mentioned yesterday far longer than that.
Even when I do an opening critique or full-blown copyedit for writers, I always go the extra step and teach via imbedded comments as I go. (No, most copyeditors don’t do that, yet many of them charge far more than I do for a lot less information. I never quite figured that one out.)
Zoom wouldn’t be quite the same as teaching a live seminar or workshop. It wouldn’t have quite the spontaneity or personal interaction, but it’s something I will consider if there’s enough interest.
But I can’t read your mind. So to indicate that interest
Email Me or leave a comment to let me know you would be interested in attending Zoom meetings. (Frankly, I anticipate a minuscule response. Please prove me wrong.)
If I get a big enough response to make it even minimally worth my time, I’ll dive into learning to use the Zoom platform and develop a series of workshops on various craft topics.
If you’d like to peruse a list of topics you might want to learn, download the free Craft & Non-Craft Topics to Stir Thought and look it over.
Then leave a comment or email me to let me know what you’d like to learn.
If I do the Zoom workshops, probably each one will be about an hour long and will have minimal cost.
So how much is “minimal cost”? Probably something between $20 and $50. Knowing me, I’ll probably include a comped paid subscription to TNDJ.
But if you have a specific suggestion for what the cost should be, email me.
Bradbury Challenge Reminder
In the second item in today’s Of Interest, Dean Wesley Smith reminds us of the power of a challenge and the resulting streak.
Challenges and streaks often go hand-in-hand, and both are self-motivating catalysts that will drive you to the keyboard to write and can drive you to put on your publisher hat.
Today is Saturday. You who are in or want to join the challenge, please be sure to get your story info in to me before TNDJ goes live on Monday.
Setting a personal deadline for yourself earlier in the week is the easiest way to ensure that. Please submit only the story title, word count, and genre in this format: Story Title xxxx Genre. Makes it easy to cut and paste.
Remember, the whole point of the challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer even as you expand your IP inventory. (grin)
One writer in the challenge has also expanded the challenge for himself to include publishing stories in a collection once a month.
Correction on The Numbers
For anyone watching the numbers below, somehow I
got confused on the dates on my spreadsheet,
managed to post the wrong totals (or nothing at all) on a couple of days for both fiction and nonfiction, and
found I had one wrong numeral in a spreadsheet formula.
So yesterday, I went through and manually checked the numbers. The totals below are now correct.
At least I found I still have a reasonable shot at hitting 1,000,000 words of publishable fiction for the calendar year spanning from October 1 2023 to October 31 2024. The cumulative total fiction for that year currently stands at 723,208 words.
So to hit 1,ooo,ooo words of fiction in that year, I would have to write 276,792 words of fiction over the next 104 days, or an average of 2662 words per day to reach that short term goal. So three hours of fiction writing per day, on average.
This is why I recommend using a daily word count goal and striving to reach it.
Might be time to start paying attention to my daily word count goal again. Though to be in this position I guess I’m doing all right without fretting over it. (grin)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
My Blog Streak Dean also talks about the half-price sale still going on at his Teachable site (see above).
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 810
Writing of Blackwell Ops 26: Tailor Moses
Day 1…… 2069 words. To date…… 2069
Day 2…… 3438 words. To date…… 5507
Day 3…… 1464 words. To date…… 6971
Day 4…… 2089 words. To date…… 9060
Day 5…… 1037 words. To date…… 10097
Day 6…… 1092 words. To date…… 11189
Day 7…… 1286 words. To date…… 12475
Day 8…… 3631 words. To date…… 16106
Day 9…… 2011 words. To date…… 18117
Day 10…. 2493 words. To date…… 20610
Day 11…. 2747 words. To date…… 23357
Fiction for July…………………….….… 30565
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 460110
Fiction since October 1………………… 723208
Nonfiction for July……………………… 23470
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 234350
2024 consumable words………………… 654501
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 10
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 92
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 241
Short story collections…………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
If you find this blog of value, please support it with a paid subscription. If you can’t afford it, email me.
Visit StoneThreadPublishing.com for all your fiction and nonfiction needs. Buy Direct!
Sorry to say, I have too many two-legged distractions at home for a Zoom to work for me. That's why I prefer either written format or in person. In person allows me to go to another location to get away from the distractions, so I can stay focused on the lecture/discussion. Written means I can go back over the material as many times as it takes, so even constant distractions don't hamper me in the long run. All that said, I hope you can get enough folks who CAN and WILL attend a Zoom class. :-)
I would certainly attend a Zoom! There is a lot more spontaneity than many people think if it's done right. It doesn't have to just be a "lecture".
Inventory
Hooks
Cliffhangers
Would be some of my top ones, but other topics interesting, too. Live panels and workshops, like writing conventions help folks in a lot of different ways, if nothing else, knowing that they aren't alone out there in the wilderness of authorship!