Reading Lawrence Block & A Finished Book

 Confessions of a Writer of Westerns

January 31, 2022

Most of the time, life can be good, even at 73. It's the last day of January, and it's 51 degrees. Right now, I'm sitting in the bright sunshine of our enclosed on three sides deck. I'm not sure what the temperature is as I type away facing the southeast direction, but it is hot. Guessing it might be above ninety here in my little favorite writing spot.

I had a pretty productive writing week, putting down about 4,000 words. I also managed to finish editing my next Senior Citizen book, which, God willing, I will publish in February. This week I plan to complete the second edit of the third book in my Blade Holmes, western mystery series. I had to move some things around in this one and had a couple of gaps I had to fix. Besides changing how I wrote the ending, everything seems to be rolling smoothly along.

I also spent some time shooting photos and videos this week, which always seems to make my life more fun. I also got in five good walks, down from the typical six or seven I shoot for each week.

Since I finished one book this past week, I am also in the planning note-making stage of the fourth of my series for seniors. Maybe this week will be when I get some writing done on the fifth in the series of my children's chapter books.

 

Reading – Telling Lies for Fun & Profit – A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block

There is lots of fun and information in this writing, how-to, book. Block is a master storyteller, and it shows through in this terrific collection of writing advice essays. Every chapter is timeless and told in the unique, down-to-earth, and often humorous way that only Block can do. A fine read for anyone who has hope of one day becoming a writer or better writer.  

Writing Tip – "Write to please yourself." Lawrence Block

That is always good advice, and if it just happens also to please a broad audience – even better. 😊

Weather – Another great week here in east-central Wyoming. It looks like snow is coming in the middle of the week, that's ok by me, we can use it, plus I have nowhere to go.

Quote of the day – "The more you look, the more you find." John E. McIntyre – from, The Old Editor Says

 

Today's Photos – Are from a drive through our local state park (Guernsey State Park) this past weekend.

 Click the link to see all of my books on Amazon

Have a great week. Keep on reading, and keep on writing!

 

A Look Back and a Look Into the Future

A Look Back and a Look Into the Future

2020 has got to be a better year than 2019. For me, 2019 will be a most forgettable year. A writer's life is not always easy, and I hope for each lousy year, I will have two or three good ones. One exciting thing for me is that I now have lived in every decade except the 30s. It might be a stretch for me to make that one, but who knows?

After years of writing around 300,000 words, this year was but a few thousand.  The consequences of writing less showed up in my sales, which were about half of the past few years, as were my Kindle Unlimited pages read. At times I thought maybe I had given up writing, but now I’m not sure. It might have had more to do with me than with writing. I not only wrote less, but I also gave up on a few other pursuits and hobbies. Physical ailments kept me from walking much and slowed me down from other things like photography and playing golf – looking back at 2019, I really didn’t do much of what has become my norm. But, there is always a bright side, we did some traveling, and I read quite a few good books, watched many fantastic movies, smoked some meat, completed some woodworking projects, and liked our terrific garden. I also enjoyed birthday number 71 – at my age, every birthday is excellent.

Writers are as bad as any other group at making and then not keeping New Year’s Resolutions. I have never lasted over a few weeks on any that I made. I do hope that the New Year will be a good one. Maybe I will get around to finishing and publishing the two books I have that have sat gathering dust for the past year.  Each of these books is within a few days of being completed.

My New Year’s Resolution – Enjoy life   --- As Dr. Seuss so aptly said, “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”

Today's photos are from an outing earlier this week in Guernsey State Park a few miles from where we live.

Here is the link for all my books on Amazon

Words

I have always been a goal setter, but not much of a New Year’s Resolution writer. When I did try to set a resolution or two, they were often so general that even if I reached them, I would not know. Things like, exercise more, get in shape, or lose weight, really are not goals. This year I decided on one, and it is a writing goal. This year I will write at least 250,000 words.

How Many? - I follow one writer that consistently writes one million words a year. For me, that is unrealistic, I am much too lazy to work that hard. For three or four years, I wrote 200,000 to 250,000 words each year. Lately, that has slipped to 100,000. This year I am recording when and how much I write each day. In this case, when is what days, not the time of day. I am an afternoon and evening writer, not sure why other than when I worked full time that was when I wrote.

So Far - Through yesterday, I have written 41 of 52 days, mathematically about 80% of the time. Writing, on average, four out of every five days is not bad for me.  Total words this year, so far – 37,030 words. That puts me on pace for more than my goal of a quarter million words this year.

Keeping On – I know it might be tough to keep writing at this pace, especially when I get to the editing phase of books and stories I am working on. I also am an avid amateur photographer, taking upwards of 10,000 photos each year. Most of my photos I take with fixed lens cameras with good telephoto range. I use these because I take most photos while we are hiking, or from my pickup as we travel backroads and explore new places. My favorite camera is wearing out after 25 or 30 thousand shots. Looks like I will be ordering another soon.

Looking Ahead - Now we head into March, and at last, we have snow covering the ground. I have already started some of my seeds that will be nice plants by mid-May. Spring cannot be far away.

Photos – on this post, I took this week, and with my dying cameras, still works if I am patient enough. I do have a couple others, so am not camera destitute.

Have a great week, get outside, and enjoy the end of winter.

Never Too Old To Write

It’s Never Too Late – After retiring this man decided to write a book. In his lifetime, he had published two works and a couple of essays. One of his books looked at early poetry, and another was about reading maps, both thirty years before his retirement in the early 1970s. He finished the book in a couple of years and, of course, no one wanted to publish it. At 240 pages it was, too short for some publishers and one rejected it saying, “It has trees in it.” Finally, at age 75 the University of Chicago Press, as a favor to one of their old professors, agreed to publish it for him. This book would be the first ever fiction published by their famous press. How did it do? Well, Norman Maclean’s, A River Runs through It and Other Stories, did okay. Well, that is, if fabulous sales, a major motion picture, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination are okay.

There you have it – it truly is – Never Too Late

Writing by the Numbers – Another nice week, I have settled into a routine where I am writing three to five thousand words each week. For the year, I have written a bit over 31,000 words, through yesterday, and have written 33 of the 44 days this year. I am on pace to reach my goal of a quarter million words in 2019.

Reviews – I Can’t Make This Stuff Up – “To my dismay, the sample pages only contain the Foreward and Acknowledgement chapters, leaving me in the dark about the story.”   

The above was part of a one-star review I read about a very famous book. I wish this type of review could be taken off, as it has nothing, at all to do with the book.  (Note – I left the foreward, as I was using a direct quote – odd how so many misspell - foreword.

I once received a bad review for my misspelling of or misuse of a couple of words. The review stated they would go on to finish reading the book. This was at a time when I could not yet, afford an editor, still often my case. Did it really deserve a one-star if it was compelling enough to read on, and finish the book? Not in my mind, if I finish a book I will commonly rate it four or five stars. I rate on the story, not on a handful of errors I might catch. I finished a New York Times bestseller recently that I noticed a – the - where it should have been they. It happens!

From the Old West – The man who apologizes when there ain’t no need knows something you don’t.  

Photo of the Week –

As always, you can find all of my books here on Amazon

Follow me on twitter at @wyohistoryguy

Keep on Reading and keep on Writing

& 

Have a wonderful rest of February.

Writing and Selling Fiction - My Week

Feeling Better – It seemed to take too long – seven weeks, but at last, I am feeling better. So much better that my wife and I have got in a couple of nice hikes in the park. Now, come on spring.

Writing Week – A good one for me, this week a bit over 3,000 words. Three thousand might not be a lot for some writers, but for me, that is not a bad week. I saw a tweet this morning where someone's goal for the day was 5,000 words – wow.

Book Sales – January was okay, not great, but not bad. I did not sell as many books or eBooks, but my KDP pages read was up. Up for me means above 10,000 pages, about $50.00 worth. Some books sell, and others do not do so well seems to be a fact that everyone selling books has to face. My historical western mystery- Commitment – has been a consistent and reliable seller. If all my books sold as well as Commitment, I would be making thousands, not a hundred or two each month. As one of my kids used to say, “Oh well!”

My nonfiction gardening, humor and mystery book - Beginning Gardening & Other Entertaining Lies: Including - 4 Garden Murder Mysteries, is, at this time my slowest seller. Going to try a new cover and maybe with spring coming, some advertising to see if it picks up a bit. The gardening book I really like, and thought it was a unique idea with the chapters of garden tips broken up with short, murder in the garden mysteries, but, alas, it never caught on. Maybe someday.

It is still too early yet to tell how my newest and fourth in the series of kids chapter books, Howling at the Moon, is going to do. It will be the second to the last book in the series, and I have been told it has a great cover – hope that helps.

Writing Goals – I seem to be on track for my goal of a quarter million words this year, and that’s good.

  

From the Old West – Do not tamper with the natural ignorance of a Greenhorn.

Photo of the Week –

As always, you can find all of my books here on Amazon

Follow me here on twitter at @wyohistoryguy

Keep on Reading and keep on Writing

& 

Have a wonderful February.