Watched an interesting video with Ray Bradbury yesterday, giving a talk at a university. It was about writing of course, and explained his path to becoming a writer, laced with hints and tips on how others could become a writer. It was interesting, to say the least. It was inspirational in how passionate he was about the subject. About how much he loved writing, and about how important it was. He wrote about emotions. I really should read more of his stuff. He talked about the importance of short stories, and how they make you a better writer, and give you a sense of accomplishment by completing something sooner. He said, you should write a new short story every week or more if you can. I really should do something like that. If you can write and edit 5K words of your novel before noon every day, then why not write and edit another 2K words later in the day, and publish it as a short story once a week. Then you could have a bunch of short stories, and still keep working on your novel as you go. That would be pretty cool. That’s a really interesting idea. You could think of the short stories, as your fun reward, for getting the other 5K words finished. They could be no pressure stories. They could build up your prescense on Amazon as well. By the end of a year, you would have 52 short stories out on the web. And like Bradbury said, “I challenge you to write 52 bad stories in a row . . . it can’t be done . . . some of them will be really good.” And it’s true, while I may have a bunch of bad stories, some of them will be really good. I so like that idea. That would be incredibly cool, if you could write that many stories, and publish them. You could, create your own covers, and still pay someone to edit them. They would, only be about $40 to edit if you used Emily. I would think, that after having her edit a bunch of them, you would probably get to the point, where you could edit some of them yourself . . . risky I know. But, your not looking for these stories to make a fortune. You just want to get in the habit of writing them. It would give you so much more experience and you could really grow as a writer. They could be little side stories of the major novel your writing, like little character sketches, that perhaps don’t fit into the plot line of the major story. They could be a way to expand on little scenes, and perhaps build up more back story to go with the subject. You could price them for very cheap, and who knows. When you do manage to build up a readership for the larger novels, then there would likely be a lot of bleed of to the shorter ones. Meaning, if they’re still tied into the larger stories, then anyone interested in the larger stories would likely start buying the short ones. The other thing Bradbury mentioned was how many of his stories came from his own experiences and loves and fears. Little stories, that affected him as a child and older, eventually started finding his way into his stories. He said, that was when he really felt like he was a writer. It took him almost ten years to get to that point, but it was when his stories really got good. And even at the age of 70 something in the video, he was still coming up with experiences that he could use for stories. That really resonates with me. Mining your own experiences and feelings and exposing them on a larger scale in a story makes a lot of sense to me. You could write these stories, likely without plotting them. They would just go where they go. That would be interesting to do as well. Having the experience, of writing a novel from an outline, and writing a short story from the seat of your pants. I’m sure each would help the other be better. I would also bet, that writing the short story would help with the larger novel, especially, if they took place in the same universe. It would get your head thinking more about the larger novel, away from the main story line. The other Bradbury talked about was reading. He said, how important it was to read ever day, and what kind of stuff to read. I think, it was a short story, and a poem, and an essay. He listed a bunch of different authors and stuff. I don’t read enough, but I do get pretty excited when I think about reading. Just looking at all the different novels out there, and interesting stories to read, so makes me want to spend the time doing it. Writing more, and reading more, is something I so need to do more of. I need to find the time to make all of it happen . . . somehow. Oh yea, and, yesterday I managed to untarp, wash, and wax the boat, and still be home by 2:30 in the afternoon. And, I did my 600 calorie fast as well. Pretty good day. Oh yea, and I saw them transporting wind turbine blades on the highway home. Those are incredibly large up close. Kinda cool.

TIGERBLOOD: sure DAILYMOOD: happy & warm (waxed the boat) LOCATION: home office WORDSWRITTEN: none PUSHUPS: 3:30 wall sits TODO: edit, read, write TV: Ray Bradbury talk BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: waxing boat WEIGHT: 170 BREAKFAST: none LUNCH: none DINNER: bacon & eggs SNACKS: none ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 11:45 AWAKE: 6:15