The Day
Rolled out about 2, so back to normal. Checked emails and other things, including Dean’s blog for the past two days. I recommend reading his topic of the night Here and then Here. Great stuff if you want to see why I say you should NOT get an agent, and why you should publish your work and then leave it published.
I also read a lot of the comments on Dean’s posts. Interesting stuff, both for what people “get” and what they don’t.
Started out the day around 4 a.m. (after all of the above) just writing with Wes. My intention for today is to write all day in a series of starts. Should work out well. We’ll see.
I miss writing short stories. I miss the break that gave me from the Wes Crowley storyline and I miss the excitement of as-yet-unknown characters surprising me. I’m going to continue my hiatus from writing shorts for a while yet, but I’ll be starting a new challenge for myself soon.
Now I could just write a short story as it occurs to me, and if a story idea occurs to me strongly enough, I’ll do that. But I’m better motivated when I’ve attached my writing to a goal.
During one break in writing I designed and printed up 
some new business cards. Very basic, just to get the information out there. Here’s one, in case you’re interested.
Topic of the Night: Be Careful Where You Get Advice
I talk often about learning to quiet your conscious, critical mind when you write.
Some of you accomplish that, at least temporarily, and that’s fine. I don’t think anyone has found a way to permanently silence the critical mind. The trick is to remain on guard and to silence it each time it reappears. And it will reappear. It wants to stop you from writing as a way to protect you, remember? If you don’t write, you can’t publish, and if you don’t publish, you aren’t opening yourself to criticism.
So you learn to silence or squelch the critical voice when you sit down to write.
You are determined, even, not to rewrite because finally you’ve understood that rewriting, more often than not, will destroy a perfectly good piece of writing. So far so good.
Then you finish a short story or a chapter in your novel or a scene in your memoir and, for some completely unfathomable reason, you share it with a critique group.
So let me get this straight. You have learned, finally, to trust your subconscious and quiet your own critical voice… and now you’re going to subject your writing to someone ELSE’S critical voice?
Uh, no. Bad idea. Maybe baddest idea ever. Don’t do that.
And if you DO decide to submit your stuff for critique, AT LEAST submit it to people who have a LOT more publications than you do in the same literary genre (i.e., short fiction, essay, novel, etc.) and/or in the same commercial genre (i.e., SF, western, romance, etc.).
My advice today is the same as it was way back in October. Find yourself a good first reader.
Preferably, this person will NOT be a writer and will therefore not be tempted to bring his or her own voice to the work.
Preferably, this person will be an avid reader of the type of work you write.
Then ask that person to tell you about
- any typos
- any inconsistencies (character wearing a grey jacket when he goes into a bank and a brown one when he comes out, and
- anything else at all that confuses the reader or stops the reading cold.
Then go back and fix those places IF YOU AGREE with your first reader. You don’t have to do everything the first reader recommends.
If your first reader starts giving you writing advice, smile, say Thank You and find a new first reader.
Seriously.
Today’s Writing
Started on Book 8 by cycling back through a scene that was bothering me.
My subconscious was nagging me, saying the scene wasn’t complete, but I wasn’t able to see earlier where it was lacking.
Today as I read back through it, the rest of the scene flowed out through my fingers with no prompting from me. I love it when that happens.
Note that this is NOT rewriting. Rewriting is something you do with your conscious, critical mind, counting the number of times you use a particular word or checking to make sure you alternated sentence structures just so or whatever. None of that will improve your work. I promise.
As I expected (and hoped), the writing ran well today in a series of starts. I’m still trying to train myself to write for about an hour (about a thousand words) and then take a break.
Getting pretty good at it. Now if I can just keep doing it that way. (grin) Still, with my overall goal of wanting this novel finished and out before July 25, I think it’s not going to be a problem.
Fiction words: 4018
Writing of The Battle of Tres Caballos (Book 8)
Day 1…… 4125 words. Total words to date…… 4125
Day 2…… 2624 words. Total words to date…… 6749
Day 3…… 2766 words. Total words to date…… 9515
Day 4…… 1412 words. Total words to date…… 10927
Day 5…… 3441 words. Total words to date…… 14368
Day 6…… 1052 words. Total words to date…… 15420
Day 7…… 2486 words. Total words to date…… 17906
Day 8…… 3201 words. Total words to date…… 21107
Day 9…… 3186 words. Total words to date…… 24293
Day 10… 1585 words. Total words to date…… 25878
Day 11… 2178 words. Total words to date…… 28056
Day 12… 1730 words. Total words to date…… 29786
Day 13… 1083 words. Total words to date…… 30869
Day 14… 1784 words. Total words to date…… 32653
Day 15… 4018 words. Total words to date…… 36671
Total fiction words for the month…………… 27405
Total fiction words for the year……………… 433088