Writing in Public - Year 1, Month 5, Days 1-5

My adoption of Dean Wesley Smith's Writing in Public challenge continues.

As we discussed on Tuesday night, March was another new record word count for me.  I managed to write a total of 56,486 words during the month, an average of 1,822 per day.  This is still a long way off from a prolific professional author like Dean Wesley Smith, but it's the most I've written outside a NaNoWriMo month.  It beats my previous record set in February.


Wednesday I didn't feel well and spent much of it sleeping or reading.  The reading was P.G. Wodehouse's Psmith in the City which seems to be more of a single story than My Man Jeeves and follows two bank employees in England.  I've grown to appreciate what Douglas Adams saw in Wodehouse's work, and have read several lines that remind me of something Adams would write.  I consider this research for my own writing, as I'd love to be able to deliver humorous lines the way Adams and Wodehouse did.  All I managed was a journal entry (478 words).

Thursday I added to my Ark story on the ASL Series site (676 words), wrote a post about Douglas Adams and Wodehouse's humor style on How to Write Fiction (1244), and did a journal entry (623 words).

Friday I wrote a journal entry that included an exploratory draft of a possible short story or novel around technology problems a person experiences (1165 words).

Saturday I wrote only a short journal entry (254 words).  I'd slept in, the day was a busy one around the house, and we went out with friends in the evening.  That left me with little writing energy.

Sunday I also slept in, then had breakfast with my wife.  After that, there were things to do to get ready for the family to come over for Easter dinner.  Since Thursday, I've continued to read a biography of Douglas Adams, so the time not spent writing hasn't been wasted.  I've learned a number of useful things from the book and I think I'm beginning to understand how Adams was able to write such funny material.  I also see that he and I have had much in common. I've also seen a number of interesting coincidences.  For instance, in the radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it's said that Ford Prefect "picked up his crucial towel at Marks & Spencer (the Salisbury branch, according to the series)" (This quote is from The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)  Out of all the Marks & Spencer branches that could have been chosen for that line, it happened to be the one with (a more-common spelling of) my last name...

I did some brainstorming for a story (106 words) and a journal entry (541 words).  That's it.


Here are my notes from this week:

• Meaningful Quotes: 
• "There is nothing better than a few constraints you can comfortably kick against." - Douglas Adams
• "All of my life I've been attracted by the idea of being a writer, but like all writers I don't so much like writing as having written." - Douglas Adams
• "You may not set out to make a point, but points probably come across because they tend to be the things that preoccupy you, and therefore find a way into your writing."  - Douglas Adams
• What Didn't Happen and What I Can Improve for Next Week:
• Pretty much all my wanted outcomes.  I need to set aside writing time and not allow other activities to intrude on it.
• Biggest Outcomes I Wanted for This 5-day Period:
• Plot outline for The Ark - NOT DONE
• Continue worldbuilding in the Immortality universe - NOT DONE
• 20 opening lines, 2 paragraphs, 1 page - NOT DONE
• Finish the Mimas Object story - WORKED ON, NOT FINISHED
• Biggest Outcomes I Want for the Next 7 Days:
• Flesh out the "straight" part of the "Technology" story
• Finish wordbuilding the "Immortality" universe
• Finish The Mimas Object story on the ASL Series Blog
• 20 opening lines, 2 paragraphs, 1 page

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THIS PERIOD'S WORD COUNTS

• ASL Series Blog:  676 words
• How To Write Fiction Blog:  1,244 words
• Technology Story:  106 words
• Journal: 3,061 words
• This Blog: 466 words

TOTAL WORDS FOR THIS PERIOD: 5,553 words (avg. 1,110.6 per day)

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APRIL 2015 WORD COUNTS

Novels:

• Fully Invested: 0 words (notes and backstory)
• The Alliance (series): 0 words
• ASL - The Ark: 0 words
• Alien Love Story: 0 words
• Driven To Kill: 0 words
• Local Gods: 0 words
• The Black Eagles: 0 words
• The Old Hotel: 0 words
• Thief of Police: 0 words
• Immortality Story: 0 words
• Technology Story: 106 words

Short Stories:

• The Mimas Object (a story in the Alliance universe): 0 words

Non-Fiction:

• Introduction to Application Repackaging: 0 words
• Troubleshooting Windows Applications: 0 words
• Amazon Product Reviews:  0 words

Blogging and Journaling:

• Alliance for Sentient Lifeforms (ASL): 676 words
• Begin Brewing: 0 words
• Columbus Beer Scene:  0 words
• How to Write Fiction: 1,244 words
• Introduction to Application Repackaging: 0 words
• Windows Desktop Administration: 0 words
• This Blog: 466 words
• Guest Posts for Other Blogs: 0 words
• Comments on Other Blogs: 0 words
• Journaling:  3,061 words

Opening Lines, Paragraphs, Pages:

• Opening Lines Written: 0 lines (0 words)
• Opening Paragraphs Written: 0
• Opening Pages Written: 0

APRIL 2015 - TOTAL WORDS: 5,553 (avg. 1,110.6 per day)

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CHALLENGE - YEAR TO DATE RESULTS:

Record Word Counts:

• Day:  8693 (March 29, 2015)
• Week:  12,650 (March 23-29, 2015)
• Month: 56,486 (March 2015)

Month of Challenge	Words Written	Days	Words/Day
December 2014	20,754	31	669.5
January 2015	16,018	31	516.7
February 2015	47,660	28	1702.1
March 2015	56,486	31	1822.1
April 2015	5,553	5	1,110.6
TOTAL WORDS	146,471	126
Avg. Words per Day	1162.5

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My "Family Tree" - The Douglas Adams Branch - Part 2 - Wodehouse

While reading about Douglas Adams, I learned that one of his favorite authors was P.G. Wodehouse. This places Wodehouse in my author "family tree" also.  I read about Wodehouse earlier this evening and learned some interesting parallels between the two of us:

• Wodehouse and Adams both wrote items for their school newpapers, as did I.
• Wodehouse wrote short stories that were later collected to become his novels.  Last year, I began using some of my blogs in much the same way... to write short passages that would become topic or chapters of a finished book.
• Wodehouse wrote song lyrics, which I dabbled at in high school.
• Wodehouse had "little interest in politics and world affairs" which is true of me as well.
• Wodehouse had trouble with plotting in his early works, but later became known for his skill at constructing and developing plots.  I still have trouble with plotting.  It would be good to know what helped Wodehouse develop that skill, apart from simply writing more stories.
• Wodehouse never had any biological children, but did have a stepdaughter.  I have no biological children but two stepchildren.

Those are the only similarities I found between the two of us.

One thing I found interesting about Wodehouse was how he seemed to poke fun at his critics throughout his career.  An author who criticized him was parodied in one of his works.  A critic who called him a "performing flea" found his words the title of a Wodehouse book.

After reading about the man, I took a look on Amazon and found that I could read his book "My Man Jeeves" for free. I did.  It was interesting.  It's basically a collection of brief tales about people who all claim not to be intelligent, and get into a variety of unfortunate situations.  In many cases, the butler Jeeves (being the only one described as intelligent) often provides a solution that saves the day.

For a modern reader, the 1919-era language can be difficult to sort out at times.  You'll find phrases like "I'm a peaceful sort of cove" (man), "I have never touched you" (borrowed money from you), and "unless I made the thing a bit more plausible, the scheme might turn out a frost" (unless I made it seem more believable, it wasn't going to work).  If you stick with it, though, there are some very interesting turns of phrase, like:

• "England is a jolly sight too small for anyone to live in with Aunt Agatha, if she's really on the warpath."
• "...an hour before he had seen his aunt off to whatever hamlet it was that she was the curse of."

These phrases could easily be confused with something from Douglas Adams, so it's clear he was influenced by Wodehouse's work.

You can often tell when one of Wodehouse's characters is in trouble.  This is usually when an aunt or an uncle arrives.

I expect to read more of his work, both because I can see what Adams enjoyed about it and because I do enjoy puzzling out some of the unfamiliar language.  One of the nice things about Wodehouse's work is that much of it is available free of charge on Amazon.com.  Reading it on the Kindle, it's easy to tap an unfamiliar word or phrase and find out what it might mean.

Taking this family tree idea back further, Wodehouse was reportedly inspired by a number of others, including:

• Frank Sullivan - Known for his character "Mr. Arbuthnot the Cliche Expert"
• Sir A.P. Herbert - An English humorist, novelist, and playwright
• Sir W.S. Gilbert - An English dramatist, librettist, poet, and illustrator know for the Savoy operas
• Alex Atkinson - An English journalist, novelist, and playwright
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson - A popular British poet
• Shakespeare
• Rudyard Kipling - An English short story writer, poet, and novelist, known for The Jungle Book, Gunga Din, and The Man Who Would Be King
• Omar Kayyam - A Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet
• Edgar Wallace - An English writer, incredibly prolific
• Agatha Christie - They exchanged autographs and letters
• Donald Jack - An English and Canadian novelist and playwright
• Gavin Lyall - An English author of espionage thrillers
• George MacDonald Fraser - A Scottish author who wrote historical novels, non-fiction books, and several screenplays
• Dame Ngaio Marsh - A New Zealand crime writer and theatre director
• Rex Stout - An American author of detective fiction featuring his character Nero Wolfe

It will be interesting to figure out which of these were his primary influences, because this is a lot to wade through.

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