Hello, writer & voter, Now that I've finished Wordle I can get my day started! Just kidding. Because next I have to play Quordle. And then all the games on Phrazle. And then Sedecordle and Sedec-order. And Nerdle. And by the time I'm done with that, it's almost bedtime again. OK, it's
not *that* dire. But morning coffee break has been given over mostly to word games, when it used to go to reading. "Hey," I lie to my own stupid face, "it's just so I can get my brain into word-mode before I start dealing with words all day." (As if reading doesn't accomplish the
same.) All this is to say: What word games are you hooked on? I need more. I first played
something Wordle-esque in Ms. Theine's sixth-grade classroom. She called it "Peko, Fermi, Zilch" (I can't promise it's the right spelling, and neither can Google). One student thinks of a (classroom-appropriate) four-letter word. Say the word is "fine" and someone in class guesses "fern." The kid
at the front writes: PFZF. The f is in the right place (Peko); the e and the n are in the word but in the wrong place (Fermi); there's no r in the word (Zilch). It's now the next kid's turn to guess a word. And hopefully it's not the kid who doesn't understand the game at all and will guess something like "roar." My friend Alex and I got so into PFZ that we played in the car with his family during a road trip to Wisconsin's capital city, Madison, to watch some sporting event I've forgotten. When I stumped the fam with a word so obscure they didn't believe it even existed, Alex's dad pulled over at the actual state capitol to ask for a dictionary. Someone inside the capitol pointed us to an office, and the people inside that office slid us a dictionary. It being Wisconsin, they were super friendly, even if they talked shit about us after we left. The word was "manx." I knew it as a type of cat, and as an excellent PFZ word. But the dictionary capitalized it, a proper noun, so the consensus was: I'd broken the rules. Thirty years later, that still burns my ass. This long and pointless anecdote came to me only because of my
other morning-coffee pastime: Reading the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel daily newsletter, which yesterday pointed me to a story about Alex, with whom I stayed in touch until COVID came along. I think I'll go give him a call. I think I'll go give him a text. (Hey, I'm not a crazy
person.)
In honor of NaNo, let's get our fiction on! While you continue to churn out daily words, get a beta read of your novel's first 10 double-spaced pages and a 30-minute chat with your reader for only $99! We have so many good fiction readers, it's almost dizzying! Click the button below to set it up. (You don't have to be NaNo-ing to qualify!)
WriteByNighters of the Week |
WriteByNighter Nick Westfield's debut novel, The Two-Blood Lion, is available from Atmosphere Press! Reviews
are roaring. Nick had a pub consult with WBN coach John Sibley Williams. WriteByNighter (and my fellow Milwaukeean) Lilith Zarling has a new podcast, Girldick with Ted Cruz, in which she and her co-host answer questions and offer advice on the transgender experience, and try to "make you laugh while doing it." Lilith has worked in coaching with Resa Alboher. Bryan Miles has some cool fiction out from The Crow's Quill, both the June and September issues! Bryan has worked with WBN coaches Tariq Shah, Marie Curran, and Darcie Abbene.
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In our new format, I ask the question, you reply, and I run my favorite answer(s) in this space. (This week's question is at the end of this email.) Last week's FAQ, with some responses below: What is your current no. 1 writing obstacle, and how will you make your way over, under, or around it? Raymundo says: "A form of procrastination. I'm frozen over the list of writing projects I've compiled, all of which I want to accomplish ... Trying to decide which one to
concentrate on, I concentrate on none." The solution? To "lay out my projects with a mechanism to track my work for each." Jerry Schwartz writes, "I have a good beginning and a good ending, but I don’t have anything to fill
in the middle. It was supposed to be a Halloween short story, loosely derived from an old folk tale, but I’m stumped. I don’t remember hitting a brick wall like this since I attempted an opus about a necrophiliac homicide detective." Several replies were about lack of time and lack of focus, as well as ill health,
general depression, and... wind! Tanya Rust has discovered a love of writing outdoors, but recently "an unexpected gust of wind scattered my pages across my acre and a half property." Luckily she tracked down all but three. (Love Actually, anybody?) David Bushman has had a big year. His January true crime book, Murder at Teal's Pond: Hazel Drew
and the Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks (Thomas & Mercer), called a "taut page-turner" by PW, has netted more than 10,000 reviews between Goodreads & Amazon. And he's joined the cast at WriteByNight! OK, so maybe that second thing isn't
quite as big a deal as the first. But it is for us! And for you. Because David is now available to work with you on your fiction or non, especially if your fiction falls under mystery or thriller and your nonfic involves journalism, sports, or, duh, true crime. Reply to this message if you're
interested in working with David. November Promotion #2: FREE Chatting! Sign up for a full-length beta read or critique and receive a FREE 30-minute chat with John Sibley Williams, our publishing expert. John has worked as a literary agent and publicist, and for five years was marketing director at a self-publisher. So whether you're going traditional or going it alone, John has answers to all of your questions. Click the button below to get started!
Yak Babies: Takin' a Quick Yak |
We're still on a break, but here's one of my favorite episodes from the recent past, "Reading for Quality or Quantity." It's something I think about a lot these
days: Would I rather read, say, five so-so books or read one great book? At what point does excellence trump variety? Where do you land?
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Click to listen
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What Am I Writing? What Am I Reading?
I've just finished my umpteenth reading of Jekyll & Hyde, after which I read Nabokov's lecture on the book from his collected Lectures on Literature. The lecture was surprisingly unenlightening, but I appreciated the sketches. Now I'm about one-third of the way through Rosemary's
Baby. I just passed the "chocolate mouse" scene, so the horror hasn't ramped up just yet. But it's about to. The writing feels dated, but in a charming way. What are you
reading? Wherein I ask you the question, you send me your answer, and I publish my favorites in the next email message. This week's question comes straight
from WriteByNighter Tim H.: "When does the second-guessing end? Some days I’m pumped up and ready to write, while other days I feel like I’m kidding myself to believe anyone would pay
to read my book ... Do you have any insight into these kind of ups and downs?" Reply to this email to submit your response. In case you win top reply, let me know how you'd like me to style your name (or you can be anonymous) and include a link to your work, your Twitter, whatever you'd like. Writerly Quote of the Week “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
― Anais Nin David Duhr
Co-founder, WriteByNight
P.S. If you know someone who might benefit from today's message, please feel free to forward this
email along. Go on, help a writer out. Resources Find a home for your creative work Carve out writing time from your busy schedule |
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