Professional Writer Series

I’m Searching for a First Reader

Hey Folks, I’m taking “applications” for first readers, for my current work in progress (WIP) and in general. If you’re interested,  email me directly at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But first, you might want to read the rest of this post. (grin) Being a first reader is yet another way you could support this blog and get to read some great stories to boot. What I Write I write war/action-adventure, black-ops stuff, crime stuff, detective stuff, SFF (science fiction/fantasy) … Read more

How to Write Like I Do

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

A Rewriting Metaphor

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

An Evening with Ray Bradbury

Hey Folks, I have a real treat for you today, via my friend, writer Christopher Ridge. Chris brought to my attention a presentation by Ray Bradbury to participants in a university writing program. You can find the link toward the end of this post. The video is almost an hour long, but it’s Ray Bradbury, for goodness’ sake. Who can’t listen to Ray Bradbury for an hour? On writing? Of course, I was hooked at the … Read more

Have Fun With Your Writing (or Don’t Be An Intrusive God)

Hey Folks, First, Happy New Year. I hope last night was fun and safe for everyone. Second, you might have noticed I didn’t post last Tuesday, on Christmas Day. I’d like to say that was out of reverence or whatver, but it wasn’t. I wanted to leave up the post on Challenges for another week. After all, today’s a great day to begin a new challenge. (grin) Let me be clear: if writing fiction wasn’t the … Read more

A Time for Challenges

Hey Folks, Well, I’m leaving this post up for another week. Not because I don’t have plenty else to write about, but because… It’s that time of year again. The new year is rapidly approaching, and with it comes new opportunities and new resolutions. A time to reset writing goals and maybe jumpstart our writing. What better way to start than with a personal challenge? We use challenges to stretch ourselves just a bit beyond what … Read more

Let the Writer Beware

Hey folks, Recently, a writing friend sent me a link to an article that seems to indicate Scribd, a major subsciption service, is not paying authors. To read the original article, see http://writersweekly.com/this-weeks-article/scribd-com-is-copyright-infringement-their-business-model-and-are-you-a-victim-too-by-wilfried-f-voss. It’s an interesting article. But we’re all in charge of our own career to one degree or the other. In the end, my only advice would be to not distribute to Scribd (or do), and to do a search and remove any of … Read more

Tag Line Verbs (and Mostly Those That Are Not)

Hey Folks, Okay, first, to get us on the same page, what I call a “tag line” is what some call a “narrative beat.” I guess there are other names for it too, but here’s why I call it a tag line. When characters are engaging in dialogue, there are two types of narrative that may accompany the dialogue. One is the tag line. The other, I call a brief descriptive narrative. They are distinctly different … Read more

Safeguard Your Credibility, Part 3

Hi Folks, A long while back, in two parts, I published a post titled Safeguard Your Credibility. Here’s the Original Post and Here’s Part Two. Both posts were all about not displaying ignorance. Yet the only way to avoid displaying ignorance is to eradicate it. And the only way to eradicate it is to learn and continue learning. Of course, all of us are ignorant of some things. Nobody can be aware of everything. But I … Read more

“That” You Write vs. “What” You Write

Hi Folks, In a recent post (as I write this), Dean Wesley Smith wrote “…all that matters is the writing, not the end product.” That seemingly innocuous statement is only one of the many truly major lessons I’ve learned from him and attempted to pass along. To establish credentials, Dean Wesley Smith is a USA Today best selling novelist with over 200 novels to his credit. He has also written several hundred short stories, almost all … Read more