Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for November 08, 2022

Sounds Easy Peasy, Luann… you got this!

Just a reminder… Get on out and VOTE today!! =)

From what I’ve read, many professional writers had 2000 words of saleable fiction as their daily goal. But not just typing like Luann is thinking, writing good enough to sell. Then there is the non-writing time spent on plotting, proofreading and research.

But all we’re seeing is Luann dithering away calculating how much time it could take and not getting started. Greg is making Luann seem like a loser once again.

sure, Luann… it’s so easy-peasy and lemon squeazy

Works best if you don’t use any long words

Gee, Lu.

Maybe you’d better stick to art.

Famous last words. We’ll see.

I thought math wasn’t Luann’s strong point?! 8^ )

That’s what many people do… spend a big chunk of time with spread sheets and pie charts, planning what to do to meet their goals instead of actually doing the work to get there.

Good luck on that Luann!

This is painful to watch…

Only IF you KNOW what to type. Have your whole book in order. Divided up into chapters. You know…concept….idea…mapping….outline….chapters….plus character developments and their names and descriptions….the settings….and oh so many more to ponder on. It is not like copying from your diary and submitting it. Your story actually happened so it was very easy for you to submit it straight from a source which was your diary. Now, are you going to do another one from your diary which I doubt meets the word quota….unless perhaps you copy the entire diary entries into your one book and slap a title on it. Chapters would be a breeze. just put dates and think up of a title that fits the story in that chapter. Viola. You have your book.

If it were only about typing words on paper, we’d all be Stephen King.

Luann’s dreaming reminds me of a song from the musical, “The Pajama Game” when the employees of the factory dream of getting a seven and a half cent per hour raise from the factory, and how that raise will add up over an hour, over a day, over a week, and so on.

So glad Luann has managed to get it all figured out to a science!

Hey luann, instead of hypothesizing how many words you COULD type to get the task done in the shortest amount of time, why not actually DO the task and get it done. Just a thought

Now, to get the words to flow…

A shame that this arc is getting silly.

It’s like a statistician on steroids trying to calculate the number of musical notes played by an orchestra in a concert.

Luann thinks it easy-peasy.

Procrastination is her middle name!!1

Hurry. The world desperately needs a Horrible Haircut sequel.

No, Luann. You can’t type “Greg 8-11” a total of 1,087 times every day..

Maybe for Luann writing is so natural that it will be really easy, maybe those are just the last famous words before a very hard creative block. Anyway, I’m pretty sure this is the first time we can read what Luann is thinking. It’s very rare that this strip uses think bubbles and in the past these have been used almost exclusively by Bernice. I love this change! I hope Luann and Tara read each other what they wrote at the end of the day. Maybe Tiffany will appear and Luann will ask her what happened to her arm.

Done and yes.

Writing 2173 words isn’t a problem, but there are two other things that are.

1. Like someone said, you have to get the words in the right order.

2. Writing 0.9 words could be a problem.

My greatest fear is that Vale will join them at the Fuse. The man is a buzz kill

How do you eat an elephant?

Reminds me of school assignments where students have to write essays of so-many words.

It seems that quantity was more important than quality.

Luann types that fast? And its all creative, too? I doubt it, on both counts.

Luann knows her arithmetic.

She’s also getting sidetracked. But really 2,000 words a day is the accepted norm for a professional novelist. And if knowing she can break it down like that helps motivate her that’s great! We voted early this year. I highly recommend that if your state offers it. We had no lines No waiting and were out in a few minutes. I urge everyone to vote as well. It’s our precious right as an American citizen and we should use it wisely.

I type at about 34 words a minute. it really irritates a friend of mine because I only use two fingers and she went to a professional school for it.

Suddenly she decides math is really her thing.

Well she has a start. I see Greg 11/8 on the computer screen. so only 2,1,72 to go. “Uh, hey Tara, do the words have to make sense?”

Tara knows the first rule to being a writer: it’s to WRITE.

Maybe LuAnn should stick with arithmetic.

Thinking about how much you have to write to make your goal is progress?

So far she’s managed to type ‘greg 11-8.’ How gripping.

Let’s see. There’s one day left in November. Hmm. only 50,000 words a day.

I strongly recommend searching YouTube for Neil Gaiman’s commencement address titled “Make Good Art”. It’s good advice for any aspiring maker. He’s a writer, so that’s what he knows, but it applies to any kind of art. If you want to make good art, just get out and start making art. Lots and lots and lots.

I was having a lot of trouble writing, so I started an exercise one year of writing a drabble a day. It was hard some days. Luann will eventually find it’s hard some days. A drabble is a very short story — 100 words. It’s a good exercise. Some of the stories really sucked, but it forced me to produce, and that’s valuable.

I am getting a little disappointed with the fact that Luann is not evolving even the tiniest bit. She is showing absolutely no growth whatsoever. She doesn’t even work at the Fuse to help her parents out. I know it is hard to write a comic every single day but something has got to happen to mature Luann a little bit.

Bern at least made her think about content, that her diaries could be the basis for individual written stories. You have to have ideas and content first and Luann has forgotten that. She sees Tara who has ideas oozing out of her pores and whose rate limiting step is how fast she can get them down (legibly) on a piece of paper. Luann now thinks writing is all about how fast one can type. She needs to get back to content. Tara will not help her there.

Do we get the impression that some comic strip creator somewhere is asking their audience to realize how difficult it may be to write the stories they present in their strip and to cut them some slack? 8^ )

It might be easy to type 50,000 words in a day, but would what was written be comprehensible, or merely reprehensible?

Luann is not a writer and never will be. That is not how a writer thinks. She should spend her time doing something she wants to do.

Each minute on the calculator increases the words per minute needed to reach the goal.

Luann is what happens when you make an RPG character and refuse to put any points at all into the Wisdom stat.

That’s 2,000-odd FINISHED words. That’s a huge factor.

YAY for Luann!! I really hope this becomes her profession. :)

As someone who used to want to be a writer, I can confirm: It’s just that easy… until you try to do it.

Writing is not typing.

All of a sudden Tara has the same assignment? It didn’t appear she was even around

So instead of actually writing something, Luann is fiddling around on her phone doing nothing (again), which is typical behavior for her. She is a perfect representation of her unmotivated, lazy, irresponsible generation. Tara is the exception to the rule, unique, motivated, talented, and she is a good friend to Luann. As much as I like Tara, she can only do so much cheerleading before it gets monotonous and Luann starts to drag her down. And didn’t Luann go through this writing stuff before? Some kind of mail order thing?

Luann can just write a really, really, really, really, really, really, really,…(x 2174)… really long sentence.

Writing is hard, good writing is exponentially harder. Try those numbers Lu.

“… especially for a flow of consciousness type.”

Why does Luann always seem so childish? Does she ever get to grow up just a tad bit? I voted. Voting gives you the right to complain! If you didn’t vote…keep quiet!

I started writing a book, it was going to be the first in series following a former cop in Houston, where I live. After a few chapters I realized that it wasn’t just about what was in my head but that I’d need statistics and facts about homicide and autopsies etc.. Then I looked at other authors and all the research they did beforehand and I decided that it was too much work.

Today’s Writing Truism: quantity over quality often results in bad fiction.

Except you used up an hour that could have been used to write.

The problem with procrastination is that it takes so much time.

Writers’ block even before she starts!This is not for you; go back to what you love, working with kids. ;-)

I am a published ebook author. I have seven novels in publication and am currently working on my eighth. Certainly not on the NYT bestseller list but I do successfully sell my books. I personally don’t worry about how many words I write per day. I set vague goals; for example, this newest work is convoluted with many working parts so I intend to publish it by summer of next year. A lot of writing fiction is internal, figuring out your characters and plot timelines, and researching your facts. I interview people to obtain information or insight. That being said, maybe Luann needs to see the facts to break down the task and make it seem less overwhelming.

What’s 23 days in Luann comic strip time?

Maybe Bernice can coach her in how to write steamy romance novels? :-/

old saying: you can’t write a “stream-of-consciousness” piece if you aren’t.

:-/

Writing Luann write write write!

I PREDICT….by Saturday Luann will have not written anything at all.

Luann may just be too neurotic for this project.

She hasn’t quite caught on to the fact that it isn’t the Word Count that is difficult.

It’s getting the Word Content right that makes it hard.

The way Luanne is approaching Nanowrimo makes me feel like I am doing good and I am only a bit over 1,000 words

Arrgh! Dummy Luann doesn’t even glimpse that her “words” have to say something and tell a story! Writing’s not just a typing speed exercise, you twit!

Remember, those infinite monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters never take bathroom breaks.

I once had to type out a fifteen-page term paper, did it all at once. It took me about nine straight hours of typing. I do NOT recommend it.