Hey Folks, First, my deep gratitude to Michaele for letting me know the Journal wasn’t in her inbox this morning. My apologies. I forgot to check the category box. (grin) It was a good post. If you’re interested, you can find it at http://harveystanbrough.com/daily-journal/6042/. The baby needed to be close this morning for some reason. Who knows what’s in a little cat’s mind? But that’s fine. The time we get to spend with loved ones is … Read more
Hey Folks, I love being my age. It’s a built-in excuse for being grouchy about all manner of things. Woohoo! A couple of days ago, I wrote “One of my Brooklyn guys (that’s him on the left) dropped in to say, ‘Hey, whadda you know from females, am I right?’ To which I replied, ‘Wull, yeah. But it has to be done, right?’” Then I forgot to add the pic. (sigh) Okay, so THAT’S him on … Read more
Hey Folks, REALLY slow start today. Not with the story. It’s fine. I just stayed up too late and then had a bout of insomnia. So a lot of waking-up, dawdling time this morning. Drizzling rain here this morning. When I’d been up about an hour, I, a good cigar and my second mugga coffee headed outdoors with my laptop to play Spider, read some stuff (see “Of Interest”), etc. Of course, halway through the cigar … Read more
Hey Folks, It’s Saturday, so I’d like to be done a little early. With that in mind, I set firmly in my brain last night that I wanted to get up at 2 a.m. I used to do that all the time (set a mental alarm clock) back in the day and it always worked. But I haven’t tried it consciously for years. It worked this morning. Topic: A Reminder to Let It Be This notion … Read more
Hey Folks, I’ve received some interesting and heartfelt comments lately. I appreciate them. I haven’t allowed any of them through as comments on the blog because they were personal rather than of interest to writers. But I’ll always respond privately. Several (thank you) offered blessings. One was a tad derogatory. What I write in this Journal never is for self-aggrandizement. Trust me, I have a big enough ego that I don’t need that. (grin) In every … Read more
Hey Folks, Topic: Planning This kind of goes along with Dean’s post on traveling and writing and my recent post on life events or life rolls and writing. Notice, the common denominator is writing. If you don’t write, substitute the activity that is nearest and dearest to your heart and keep reading. (grin) I was doing the early morning shift for quite awhile (maybe two years?), getting up at 2 or 3 and hitting the sack … Read more
Hey Folks, I learn something new with pretty much every novel I’ve ever written. Usually that has to do specifically with the writing process, and more specifically with novels. But sometimes I get lucky and learn or realize something that can enhance any storyline, long or short. Topic: The Five Stages of “Grief” More correctly, these should be called The Five Stages of Emotional Upheaval. It seems they don’t pertain only to grief. Most of my … Read more
Hey Folks, Well, today we can call January 1/3 over. At my current rate, I should be able to clear 70,000 words this month. Maybe 80,000. We’ll see. I hope you’re having similar success. Now if I can only come up with a novel idea for the January-February transition. (grin) I wanna do something off-planet, something science fictiony or science fantasy-y. So I’ll probably write a western. (grin) Topic: Save Early, Save Often I know, old … Read more
Hey Folks, Another slow start today, basically doing almost nothing the first two-plus hours. Also I was beginning to feel a little stalled on the novel. Which is silly. This thing is so rich for storylines and subplots that it isn’t even funny. The difficult part (for me), especially as I write a novel that depends, in part, on characters and situation from an earlier novel is to remember to just have fun with it. I … Read more
Hey Folks, Today is going to be a great day. I hope it’s a great day for writing too. As I write this, I’m at my outside desk. My hands are stiff from the very light breeze, but I’m enjoying a good cigar and your company. As a bonus, I paused for a moment and looked up. The Big Dipper is almost directly overhead. As it turned out, it WAS a great day for writing, but … Read more