Month: May 2025

Scoreboard update

As I write this, I have published four stories in four years. How have I maintained this blistering pace? When the railroad was invented in the 1830s, scientists were concerned that women were too delicate to travel so quickly. A forward velocity of 20 miles per hour would surely make a woman’s head explode, whereas we now know their heads explode because of Donald Trump.

I was paid well by today’s standards for all four stories. That’s a miracle here in the 21st century, when writers are so often compensated with likes, hearts, clicks, and “exposure” (that thing you die from). I remember Harlan Ellison hollering “Pay the writer!” in a documentary about his life. “Are you paying your printer? Your webmaster? Your artist? Pay the writer!”

Two of my stories featured women and three featured people in middle age (another miracle, given that most editors graduated from college about a week ago). Two are behind a paywall. My topics included chess, trains, sex, family, marriage, and baseball. All the major food groups. They were all fun to write, though the one I wrote based on my parents came close to killing me.

I find it interesting—to me, anyway—that I’m finding homes for these stories after I decided not to write more short stories. I swore an oath to the head of my order to write novels from now on.

That brings me to my first novel and my first draft, which today hit 52,300 words. I ended last week with 51,920 words. 380 words in one week? That’s barely more than 50 words per day. That’s how things go in the first draft, I suppose. Sometimes the words flow and sometimes I have a lot to think about. Anyone watching me would commit suicide to escape the boredom.

I’d like to finish my first draft by the end of June. How long will my draft be? My guess is 65,000 words. That means I have 12,700 words to write, or 2,546 words per week, or 363 words per day. That’s just a long email…if you know where you’re going.

I’ve been writing 10,000 words per month since December, so I’m confident I can do this. 10,000 words per month, or 120,000 words per year, isn’t much. Barry Malzberg, at the height of his career, claimed to be writing a million words per year. I imagine that Ray Bradbury, Norah Roberts, Danielle Steele, Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz, Robert Silverberg, and several others, in their prime, hit one million per year. They are out of my league. My current pace will get me where I want to go, and without my head exploding.

Lucky and Tango rest after a some major deconstruction in my archives.

The blog that came in from the cold

I published my first story in 1979. I received $21.50 and the sense that the world was mine. Neither of these things lasted long.

This week I published my latest story, in the Lemonwood Quarterly. “Two Tickets to Gumstump” is about marriage, trains, recycling trains, and recycling marriage. I was paid $200. I am feeling just as good as I did on that day in 1979 when I opened my mail and found that check from my new editor.

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one’s family and friends; and last, the solid cash. (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Obviously, this kind of money is not going to change my life. (Though in Hawthorne’s time, with $21.50 you could outfit a family of 10 and a Conestoga wagon. With $200, you could burn down Chicago and then rebuild it.) But this sale still counts as solid cash.

Here’s how to follow Lemonwood, which has now released its second issue. There’s no paywall, no account to set up, and you don’t have to click an endless series of photos of bikes or bridges to prove you’re human:

Bluesky

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Publishing my fourth story in five years seems like a good time to light a fire under this old blog. Yes, as you can see, I am still blogging, not vlogging, podcasting, TikTokketing, or whatever new thing will be invented this year that will eviscerate all the old things by next year. I’ve been blogging with WordPress since 2009; so long, in fact, that I have a sweetheart deal with them. They’re practically paying me to write this [citation needed]. At least I’m no longer writing and mailing a paper zine.

I’m going to post every Sunday. Next week: What am I doing in this canoe and what’s happened to my writing? Also, more photos of corgis on the attack. Thanks for reading.

Here’s the latest word count on the first draft of my novel as of Sunday, May 11:

51,920