Quantity and Quality
In the previous post I wrote a bit about attending the Character and Voice Workshop by Dean Wesley Smith and Kris Rusch. Again, run there, run there now. Seriously. It’s that awesome, so much so I’m willing to violate grammar to make the point.
I want to talk about one other thing this workshop drove home for me. I am capable of writing quality stories in considerably shorter time frames than I ever thought possible. Let me say that again: I can write quantity and quality. Whoa. This has very interesting implications in the new future of self-publishing—but more on that later.
In a previous post, I wrote it took me three to four months to write a story. Well, present-Jeffrey wants to smack past-Jeffrey. It’s a myth that a story has a long gestation time–one I bought, until I was forced to prove myself wrong (seriously, run there, run there now). Before I left for this workshop, my 2012-2013 writing goal was to write six short stories: four for Writers of the Future and two extra on the side. After, my goal is twice that and the only reason it isn’t higher is that I’ve lost the first half of year to that myth (my writing year is slaved to Writers of the Future Contest, October to September).
How am I doing? It’s September, and I’ve written 12 stories for almost 100,000 words. If you count flash, and I do, it’s actually 13 stories.
There are many myths in writing. Debunk them: read both Dean’s and Kris’s blogs, get to their workshops, talk to them. These are seasoned pros on the leading edge of publishing–soak up what they have to teach. My writing would still be stuck in restrictive, confining myths without them.