Over the past week I’ve written two short stories with the intent of exploring a new science fiction world. I was reasonably happy with the first one, but something didn’t feel right about the second one.

That second story was a murder mystery and I laid out the death, the suspects, and the resolution. The story ended up being a little shorter than I expected, but that wasn’t what bothered me. If I’ve learned one big thing in the past few years, it’s that a story will be as long as it needs to be. There have been multiple occasions where a story I thought would be about 3,500 words ended up being nearly 5,000. And some I thought would be 6,000 words ended up at 3,000!

I had someone read the story, Someone with much much more experience thanI have, and whose opinion I respect. Good writing they said, but you lost me when I realized there was no setting.

Wham! Nailed it in one!

When I reread the story, I knew exactly what they meant, and I realized why the story ended up that way. I had a vision for the location and setting – a tropical beach on a planet somewhere in the Milky Way – but I didn’t see it. For example, as I was writing, I didn’t have a feel for what the restaurant looked like, how the tables were set, the attitude of the wait staff, the views from the windows, the smells coming out of the kitchen. All those little things that make the story real for the reader.

I thought about the story a lot during my walks this past weekend. I still like the premise of the mystery, and the implied potential for other stories in that same world. I’m thinking I’ll write the story again, from a different character viewpoint, and see what happens to it. It will be a month or two as first, I have a novel to finish.

A week or so ago I was catching up on some motivational videos that covered reviewing 2023 and planning for 2024 when the presenter talked about time in the chair and the correct position.

Time in the chair made complete sense. If I write on average 1,000 words an hour, then if I spend three hours “in the chair,” that’s 3,000 words. Of course that shouldn’t be a single three hour block. I’ve tried that and everything gets stiff, my eyes start to cross, and to be honest, I can’t focus on a story for that long. I know, I’ve tried and my brain turns to mush just as I start the third hour.

The key in this instance is to take a break every hour or so. I tried that this month and it really makes a difference. Even five minutes away from the desk helps reset your thoughts and lets you sit down again with fresh ideas.

It was the second comment – correct position – that initially confused me. Then, I listened and understood. Get a chair the right height for your desk. Sit straight, feet on the floor, knees at ninety degrees. Use a keyboard, don’t try and work across the trackpad on a laptop.

Full disclosure. I’m a bit of a sloucher in a chair, and no surprise, it makes my back sore. After listening to the video a second time, I changed how I sit at my desk. It felt strange at first, but after fifteen minutes or so, it felt more natural, and I seem to be getting more words written as well.

Sometimes we have to return to basics to move forward.

It seems hard to believe we are already half way through 2023. It doesn’t seem that long ago since we were coming down from the New Year festivities, and wondering when it wold warm up. Now we’re into those hot, heavy, humid summer days and wondering when it will cool down.

Back in December, I had six writing projects in mind, and no surprise I’m still working on the first one. There are some reasons for that – multiple day-job projects that only really calmed down in April, and if I’m honest, no real planning to accommodate those projects and the writing. The result has been the lowest six month word count in a long time, which I wasn’t happy about, especially when I looked at a “completed” chapter and found a series of annotations that reminded me the chapter wasn’t as completed as I thought.

Yesterday I took a hard look at the manuscript and found some more not quite completed chapters. Mapping that tidy up, and the chapters still to write to a calendar for the next quarter gave me a schedule. The schedule also includes the first part of the trilogy I mentioned back in December and some short stories that got started and ground to a halt. I added those in so I could at least acknowledge Heinlein’s second rule for writers (You must finish what you write).

I’ll keep you posted.