Hey Folks, Well, through my first weekend and the challenge is still on track. And 1/6th over after today. (grin) Harder than it looks. Then again, I know what it is to dig a ditch, so…. The more I think about it, the more I think I’m going to move this Daily Journal blog back over to another website. My main website feels cluttered, and I haven’t had more than a couple of new signups for … Read more
Hey Folks, Topic: Grounding the Reader Mistakenly thinking I was asking for story ideas (a mistake I invoked by saying a few days ago I was “gathering ideas”), a friend sent me this: “Ralph pulled hard on the paddles fighting the current to pass through the water funneling between boulders. A bullet plowed into the rock directly in front of him as the blast of a high-powered rifle reached him.” When I explained I wasn’t really … Read more
Hey Folks, The challenge is going great so far. With only two days in, I’ve already touched the two extremes. First there was a story of around 3,000 words that flowed out as if anxious to get on the page. It was also a possible novel start. Then a story of over 5,000 words that happened only after a false start on another story (almost 1000 words that I didn’t count). So two days in, one … Read more
Hey Folks, Wow. It’s really odd how, with this challenge, I go from chock full of self-confidence to being a scared little rabbit-like creature. (grin) That made me think I should use the Journal for this month to record a series of topics on this experience. If you read them, no matter how accomplished you are, chances are you’ll learn something that will help in your own writing. So here goes… Topic: Day Two of the … Read more
Hey Folks, Journal entries might be sparse here during this month. I kicked off the challenge this morning at around 5 a.m. by posting the first scene of the first story. Woohoo! You can see it (and others by the time you get this) at https://www.facebook.com/HarveyStanbroughWritingInPublic/. You can also see the whole story in the right sequence by clicking http://harveystanbrough.com/the-june-challenge/. In the “Writing Of” section below, short stories for June will be numbered for now (unless … Read more
Hey Folks, This first appeared as a topic over at my Daily Journal at http://hestanbrough.com. It also sprang from a comment (a question from another writer) on Dean Wesley Smith’s website. Awhile back I talked about writing a “reverse outline.” The idea is, as you write your novel off into the dark (no pre-plotting, outlining, etc.) sometimes keeping track of characters, what they’re wearing, major situations, etc. becomes cumbersome. Now when I write a novel, I … Read more
Hey Folks, I allowed Microsoft to install the “Creator Upgrade” (something like that) on my computer yesterday. This morning when I started to write on my novel, I wrote about three words and my cursor was jumping all over the place because of the incidental contact of my palm with the touchpad. Okay, it’s a new update, so I assumed I needed to go back into my Device Settings and disable the touchpad again. Nope. Can’t … Read more
Hey Folks, When I started the day, I thought I might finish the novel today. Then again, it’s Saturday, and my son is still here. So I’ll play it by ear. Since I realized I’ll finish the novel this month with no problem, I’ve kind of relaxed. Plus with the June challenge coming up, relaxing’s probably a good idea. (grin) That’s gonna be hectic, but it’ll be a good kind of hectic. I do plan to … Read more
Hey Folks, Well, the good news is, barring any major tragedies, I’ll finish the novel this month. The sort-of bad news is that I know the ending already. I hadn’t created a reverse outline for it yet, so I started the day by doing that. But as I developed the reverse outline, the storyline became clearer than it usually is at this point. And the ending stood up and waved at me. Did I use that … Read more
Hey Folks, Not a lot to report today. A lot of little nonwriting problems swimming around in my world right now. Most of them aren’t mine, but they belong to family members so I’m not getting as much done as I’d like. I’m almost looking forward to June 1, just because my focus will be one day at a time, one story at a time, even one scene at a time. Not that I’ll necessarily nail … Read more