Hi Folks, Hey, if you want to see some excellent but very emotional writing, visit Sarandipity Travels. Sara is a beloved friend who is walking a difficult path. She is one of the best photographers I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, and she is an absolutely excellent writer. The Day Again I rolled out right at 3 this morning. Again it was too cold (27, now down to 24) to let the babies out. They … Read more
Hi Folks, Well, first day of the month. I was hoping for a really good day to start the month. It was good enough I guess, but various minor problems and one “incident” sucked up a lot of my time today. Well, and a little other writing. The novel is still going great, very smoothly moving from scene to scene. That makes it even more annoying when I can’t give it the time I want to … Read more
Hi Folks, Taking a little break today for a short post and some fun. At least I hope you’ll find it fun. “Aphorism” is defined by dictionary.com as “a short pithy saying expressing a general truth.” My aphorisms sometimes come out as definitions (ala Ambrose Bierce) and are most often satirical. Here are a dozen of mine. Remember, these are tongue in cheek: apology, n. A device intended to soothe wounds and thereby put a victim … Read more
Hi Folks, Last day of the month. I’m hoping for a really good day to close this one out and give me some momentum going into the last month of the year. But it’ll be what it’ll be, and I’m not overly worried about it. The novel’s moving along smoothly and that’s all that matters. I’m also going to work walking back into my schedule. I always get lax when the weather turns colder, and I … Read more
Hi Folks, Well, four good days in a row thus far. Before today. Missed my daily goal of 4,000 words per day on all four days, so not excellent, but good. With over 3,000 words per day on those days, that’s failing to success. Maybe I’ll tip 4,000 today. I’ve found that several times in the (now) five days I’ve been writing this novel I’ve had to remind myself that it isn’t important. It can be … Read more
Hi Folks, Not really much going on today, as you’ll see below. I almost let my head back into this one for a little while. You know the drill. Feeling like I needed to “figure out” something or other. Ugh. Anyway, it turned out it was two of my characters (from different parts/times in the story) vying for my attention. (More on this below.) Once I remembered there was nothing for me to “figure out,” that … Read more
Hi Folks, Okay, so for various reasons I didn’t get to the novel until almost 10 this morning. Ugh. Still, I don’t usually hit the sack until around 7 or 8, so I should be able to carve 4 or 5 hours of writing time out of that 9 or 10 remaining hours. (grin) The Day Rolled out right at 3. Reading DWS’ blog and the comments. Pretty good topics for the past several days, but … Read more
Well, I’m back. Finally. And I won’t leave again unless it’s feet first. I promise. Listen, if you’d rather not receive this, please don’t just unsubscribe. Please email me at HarveyStanbrough@gmail.com and I’ll remove your name from this list myself. It makes a difference over at MailChimp. Thanks. When I wrote here last, I was writing fiction pretty much every day, in addition to writing this (daily) blog as well as my main Pro Writers blog, … Read more
Don’t do it. There. End of lecture. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that’s all it took? If you’re a writer and if you’re serious about your work and if you want others to take you seriously, invest in your product (your writing, your cover, your book). The rest of this post is assuming that you already are investing time and money into learning your craft (writing). But the actual writing is only the beginning of the … Read more
Hi Folks, Okay, here is Part Two of what might be the most valuable post you’ll ever read about writing fiction. Again, I’m not kidding. (Even got the same pic in case you want to share.) The necessary preliminary stuff was in the previous post, so if you missed that one, I suggest you go back and read it first. In summary — To write a story (any length) you need only to write an opening. … Read more