DAY EIGHTEEN…
I somehow managed to get everything done today and actually get to my writing computer by 2 a.m. I would love to be earlier, but I’ll take 2 a.m.
Today I got two more collections turned in. I did the covers for all three, including paperback covers. I will give you the covers and links when the first three collections are up. I hope to do a few more fairly soon.
And I also got done the story cover for last night’s story.
And I figured out how to do my goofy comment about being a first reader. See the post above if you missed it.
So at 2 a.m., moving to my writing computer tonight after doing assignments, I instantly went to my half-title pages.
Now to explain what those are, I have gone at different points to fiction magazines in my collection (you could do this in a library as well in just the stacks or in a bookstore). I have looked through say ten issues of a 1960s Analog and only written down on yellow legal pad half titles that seem interesting. Sometimes in five stories I get one half title.
I do that in two columns on each page. About sixty half-titles per sheet.
And I do that from magazine to magazine, decade to decade. Right now I have half titles from 1960s Galaxy, 1970s F&SF and Hitchcocks, 1950s Ellery Queen, 1980s Asimov’s, and so on. (Remember, I have pretty much one issue of every sf, mystery, and horror digest done up to the year 2,000. Yes, my digest collection is that big.)
So right now I have put together about fifteen pages of double-row half-titles. When I use a half-title, I scratch it off.
So tonight, at a glance, I saw the half-title “In the Dream…” so I was scanning looking for something that felt right with that half-title. Sometimes I do this step four or five times until something clicks.
This time about four pages deep in my half-title sheets, I saw the half title “of Many Bodies.”
I heard myself say, “Cool title” and I knew I had it.
So I wrote in the title spot on my story start file “In the Dream of Many Bodies.”
I grabbed an old phone book from somewhere in the midwest, picked a first name of a guy, a last name from another part of the phone book, typed that in and started typing.
At some point I realized the guy was living on Bryant Street, so I put “A Bryant Street Story” under the title and kept typing.
I started at 2 a.m. and by 3:10 a.m. I had finished at 1,400 words. I don’t often do that either. That’s fast for me.
Here are the Covers and Stories for the April challenge.
STORIES FROM APRIL
Story #1… April 1… Not Easy to Kill the Light Next Door… 1,700 words
Story #2… April 2… A Reason to Play a Hunch… 3,200 words
Story #3… April 3… A Deal at the End of Time… 3,000 words
Story #4… April 4… A Nice Place for Murder… 3,400 words
Story #5… April 5… The Five Roads Tavern and Eatery …3,200 words
Story #6… April 6… The Last Short Putt of a Fearful Man …2,200 words
Story #7… April 7… The Wait …1,200 words
Story #8… April 8… Through the For Sale Sign …2,500 words
Story #9… April 9… Blind Date …4,100 words
Story #10… April 10… Keep Hoping for a New Tomorrow …1,700 words
Story #11… April 11… That Old Tingling …3,200 words
Story #12… April 12… The Last Man …2,500 words
Story #13… April 13… Smile …2,700 words
Story #14… April 14… Always a Way …4,000 words
Story #15… April 15… A No-Win Hand …1,800 words
Story #16… April 16… Habit …2,000 words
Story #17… April 17… A Thief of Regrets …4,600 words
Story #18… April 18… In the Dream of Many Bodies …1,400 words
(Plus six novel starts so far…)
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May ONLINE Workshops
All May online workshops are available and have openings.
ALSO, the workshop schedule through August is now posted. You can sign up ahead for any workshop you want through August.
So for information on how to sign up, go to…
www.wmgpublishingworkshops.com
Any questions at all, feel free to write me. And if you are confused as to which workshop to take first, we have a full curriculum posted on its own page.
Class #41… May 2nd … Author Voice
Class #42… May 2nd … Business
Class #43… May 2nd … Endings
Class #44… May 2nd … Writing Fiction Sales Copy
Class #45… May 2nd … Writing and Selling Short Stories
Class #46… May 3rd … Depth in Writing
Class #47… May 3rd … Advanced Character and Dialog
Class #48… May 3rd … Cliffhangers
Class #49… May 3rd … How To Edit Your Own Work (new)
Class #50… May 3rd … Plotting with Depth
HOW TO EDIT YOUR OWN WORK IS AVAILABLE STARTING IN MAY
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Tracking Running… April 18th, 2017
4 miles. No running.
Weight 194. (Goal 170)
Month to date distance: 63 miles
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Tracking Word Counts… April 18th, 2017
Totals For Year 4, Month 9, Day 18 (Year started August)
Writing in Public blog streak… Day 1,307
— Daily Fiction: 1,400 original words. Fiction month-to-date: 43,500 words
— Nonfiction: 00 new words. Nonfiction month-to-date total: 1,000 words
— Blog Posts: 1,600 new words. Blog month-to-date word count: 12,500 words
— E-mail: 31 e-mails. Approx. 2,100 original words. E-mails month-to date: 502 e-mails. Approx. 31,400 words
— Short Fiction Goal: 120 stories (July 1st to June 30th). Stories to date: 26 stories.
— Novel Goal: 12 Novels. Novels finished to date: 5 novels.
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Great stuff as always, Dean. Thanks for explaining this again. Great reminder.
Dean – curious if you might also discuss the story starts you mentioned in your Story 16 post. Is that a collection of stories you started but never finished for one reason or another? Was that before you started on Heinlein’s Rules or did you stop on those stories for any particular reason?
Not a clue why I stopped on some of those. But it was all back in the 1980s. Any number of things could have happened such as got distracted… Now that I think about it, chances are that was the major reason. (grin)