Hi Folks, Especially if you think you already know what WITD is, please don’t skip this topic. If you do know, you will have lost only a few minutes. If you don’t, this might open up a whole new world to you. Karen, an excellent storyteller, wrote a comment on my Daily Journal back in April. I responded, albeit briefly, because if someone takes the time to comment and the comment seems to beg a response, … Read more
Hey folks, I was handed this post on a silver platter by a commenter back in April over on my Daily Journal. Huh. I almost wrote “on the proverbial silver platter,” but to my knowledge there is no silver platter mentioned in Proverbs. Anyway, the commenter wrote “Cycling requires a tremendous amount of trust from the creative side. That you’re not going to meddle with the story unnecessarily….” I omitted much of her comment, but she … Read more
Hey Folks, I’ve wanted to write a post on this for awhile now, and it’s finally time. This post results directly from a high-action scene, a fight scene, I wrote back in April in my crime/action-adventure/thriller novel Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden. It was probably the best high-action scene I’d ever written, at least up to that point. This isn’t so much a “how-to” as a “how-I-do-it” post. All of this will go to my individual … Read more
Hi Folks, I did a post on Writing Off Into the Dark here some time back. Then recently (as I write this) I got into an email discussion with a fellow novelist who also writes off into the dark. The upshot was, he wondered whether maybe — when a character does something that’s unexpected and out of character — it’s all right or even necessary to create a history for that character that would explain the … Read more
Hey Folks, Recently I received an email in which a writer wrote (toward the end of some lengthy praise of my “process”) “I only wish I could write like you.” During an exchange of emails, I eventually determined the writer was talking about my ability to turn out a lot of quality short stories and novels fairly quickly (though I’m pretty much a slug by old pulp standards). And what the writer really meant was that … Read more
Hey Folks, Today I feature a guest post from Dean Wesley Smith, republished here with permission. Enjoy. Say your goal is to walk across the United States. About 2,800 miles. So say your writing career (in a modern world) lasts over forty years like mine and gets you 280 books written. Got to make the numbers round for this metaphor. (grin) So every 100 miles is a novel in your hike across the United States. So … Read more
Hey Folks, Note: I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas and will have a great New Year. One of my distributors, Smashwords, is offering a year-end sale in which I’m participating. For only 8 days, December 25 through January 1, all of my books at Smashwords are on sale for 50% off. To take advantage of this year-end sale, visit https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HEStanbrough, make your selections, and enter promotion code SEY50. Thanks, and enjoy! Awhile back I mentioned … Read more
Hey Folks, I’m adding this note late: I’ve decided to serialize my novella, Jobs Like That, over on the Writing in Public website at http://hstanbrough.com. If you’d like to receive an email each time a new installment is posted, drop by there and sign up for a free subscription. This thing is heavy on detail and grounding the reader in the scene. For genres, it’s heavy on action-adventure with a considerable chunk of romance tossed in. … Read more
Hey Folks, Well, there y’go. Half the month is almost gone already. Kind of two topics in the post today. Read down through the “Today and Writing” section for some craziness. Topic: More Thoughts on Challenges I was telling someone a day or two back that any 30-day time period is still 30 days even if it doesn’t start on the first of a calendar month. Duh. I’ve pretty much decided when I finish with the … Read more
Hey Folks, I keep feeling like I need to take a day to create covers and promo docs for the last nine short stories I wrote. Then I need to distribute them and ship them off to BundleRabbit. I’m ever aware that each day I wait is a day that story isn’t able to accumulate sales. Usually I do all that stuff as I go, often the same day I write the story. But in the … Read more