This week: Pushing Through Edited by: Jeff  
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"Do not over-intellectualize the production process.
Try to keep it simple: tell the darned story."
-- Tom Clancy
Trivia of the Week: Among the Top 10 bestselling fiction authors of all time, the Brits are trouncing the Americans by approximately 7,725,000,000 copies sold to 2,197,500,000. Then again, our friends from across the pond are anchored by William Shakespeare's 3 billion books, and his work has been selling since long before we even became a country!  Interesting fact, the only non-American, non-British author on the list of Top 10 bestselling fiction authors of all time is Belgian-born Georges Simenon, with approximately 600 million copies sold. For a roster of the head-to-head rivalry between the bestselling Brits and Americans, CLICK HERE ▼
TEAM UNITED KINGDOM:
William Shakespeare ~3,000,000,000 copies sold
Agatha Christie ~3,000,000,000 copies sold
Barbara Cartland ~750,000,000 copies sold
Enid Blyton ~500,000,000 copies sold
J.K. Rowling ~475,000,000 copies sold
VERSUS
TEAM UNITED STATES:
Harold Robbins ~750,000,000 copies sold
Danielle Steele ~650,000,000 copies sold
Sidney Sheldon ~485,000,000 copies sold
Gilbert Patten ~312,500,000 copies sold
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PUSHING THROUGH
After years of writing stagnation, I made a conscious choice in 2018 to do two things that I thought would help me break out of my malaise. First, I signed up for "I Write in 2018" , which challenges you to write one thing for one WDC activity each week (and review the work of one other participant). Second, I committed to not just participating in NaNoWriMo, but taking the traditional approach of writing a cohesive fifty-plus thousand word cohesive novel. My goal has been to get back on the horse and remember what it's like to actually finishing a piece of writing.
My particular brand of procrastination and writer's block comes in the form of being easily dissuaded from writing by pretty much anything else. Add to that the fact that I'm a serious sufferer of Ooh, Shiny! Syndrome (being so enamored with a new idea that I abandon the current one, unfinished), and it's a recipe for having a hard drive full of partially-finished works that I just never quite ever get around to seeing through to the end.
If I'm being honest with myself, the time that I'm most susceptible to abandoning a project is right when it starts to get difficult. When the words on the page aren't quite flowing as smoothly as I had hoped, and the characters, dialogue, and story aren't quite coming alive on the page like I had envisioned them in my head. It's kind of like going for a jog and, every time I start to feel a tiny bit of an incline, I go, "Oh, this road is too long and hard. Let's take this other road instead!" Because running on the flat ground (or being stuck in the idealistic, development phase of a project) is always going to be easier than actually climbing the hill.
There was definitely a point in my novel this month (and on more than a few weeks over the course of the "I Write in 2018" challenge) where I just wasn't feeling inspired. It was a real slog; the words were hard to get out and they didn't feel all that great. I was tempted to do what I'd done so often in the past... just not submit an entry this week, just give up on that novel and start over with a new one. But this year I forced myself to push through. I put one foot in front of the other and have knocked out an item each week. I put my head down and just kept writing on my novel. I didn't write anything for a few days already this November, but I made myself bear down and make up for it the next day. And in doing that, the thing I remembered was that it gets better.
If you push through the difficulties, you'll come out the other side. And soon enough, I'm writing contest entries I really like again, and I'm getting excited about my novel again. Whenever a shiny, new idea comes knocking around in my brain, I jot it down in a file and promise to come back to it at the end of November, once I've finished my current novel. It's not easy; some days I do still want to give up on this current novel and just start over with something fresh and pure and new... but if I do that, I'll have yet another unfinished piece of writing sitting on my hard drive.
The thing I'm working toward (and the thing I get every week I submit a contest entry) is that finishing something feels good. Even better than coming up with the idea in the first place and imagining all of its possibilities. I'll take a flawed finished thing any day over a perfect, untested idea. A lot of times, I need that reminder. And that reminder only comes when I actually finish something.
If you're struggling with your current work, keep at it. If you're struggling to start a new work, keep at it. If you're struggling with writing anything at all, keep at it. Writing is really hard sometimes, but take it from someone who has more unfinished works on his computer than finished ones... the time and effort you put into pushing through will pay off once you cross the finish line and look back at the entire journey you just finished.
Keep at it.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
"New & Noteworthy Things"
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This month's official Writing.com writing contest is:
I also encourage you to check out the following items:
EXCERPT: I am given to reflection at this time of year and thinking of an estate sale from Christmas past. My business as an estate sale manager feeds my love for history, adventure and romance and takes me to places that can often fulfill all those passions. It is rare to find an estate undisturbed for a century waiting to be discovered to reveal the remnants of a bygone era. The promise that one is yet to come compels me on. I received a promising call and wondered if this was it!
EXCERPT: I grew up in a magic atmosphere of books, of suave waves of creativity and writing. My father was a well-known poet in Timisoara, the old city of Romania. He was often sitting at his desk, gazing in the air, lost in an unknown world. I was little. I could not read or write, but at that time I already understood that the world of books is something very special and magical.
EXCERPT: Filippo Bruno was born in 1548 near Nola, Italy. Shortly after he turned eleven, he went to Naples, to study humanity, logic, and dialectic. Four years later, he joined a Dominican monastery, the Order of St. Dominic, and changed his name to Giordano. He became a novice and was educated in the Aristotelian and Thomist traditions for the next nine years. It was during this time that he came across the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, which challenged the Church's cosmological views and greatly impacted Bruno's life. In 1572 he became an ordained priest. He soon began to embrace Neoplatonism which attracted the attention of the Inquisition. In 1576, accusations of heresy began to circulate and he fled the monastery.
EXCERPT: I’m sure many people will explain what knowledge is and isn’t, you will find some explanations of how it enhances life, and perhaps some that demonize those who believe they are knowledgeable, but clearly are not. Those who have obtained a good deal of knowledge sometimes flaunt it, but more tend to be low key. Perhaps I have an idea why it works that way.
EXCERPT: By the time the sun reached it's apex the temperature was well on it's way to reach the predicted high of 118 degrees. For Sydney, Australia another day of record setting temperatures. Over three fourths of the worlds population have already been evacuated because of rising sea levels. For years now scientists have been warning about rising seas and yet too many political leaders scoffed at the idea of man induced climate change. But, now faced with global devastation that is unprecedented in modern times it just maybe too late for Mother Earth.
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For Authors: November 21, 2018 Issue [#9239]
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