Month: April 2022

The Journal: Welcome, About The Journal, and Archives

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Topic: Welcome and About The Journal * Of Interest Quote of the Day “[R]rewriting a story because you want to make it ‘perfect’ before you sell it? That’s a fool’s errand. You’ll end up hating the thing most likely and you’ll waste all the time you could’ve been writing new material.” Screenwriter Matt Pettipas Topic: Welcome, About The Journal, and Archives Welcome to Diana and any other new subscribers I might have missed. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been posting articles to the Journal since 2014. As a fiction writer, I … Read more

The Journal: AI Audiobooks?

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * AI Audiobooks? * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “Try to catch up if doing so is possible and will be challenging. If impossible to catch up, then simply reset the challenge and start fresh.” Dean Wesley Smith on whether to try catching up when you fall behind on a challenge “Ahh, the problems of being prolific.” Dean Wesley Smith AI Audiobooks? I currently have in my inbox (as probably do many of you) an email from Google Play Books. The subject reads “Create an auto-narrated audiobook.” As of this writing … Read more

The Journal: Use Your Author Name

In today’s Journal * Thank You * Topic: Use Your Author Name * Of Interest Thank you to the generous person who searched the Monroe Country Public Library in the Florida Keys for books from StoneThread Publishing. And thank you again for apparently uploading so many STP books to the search results and recommending some of them to the library. What a wonderful thing to do! If you have identified one of my books that you would like to read, I’d be happy to send you a free book. Just email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com and let me know the title … Read more

The Journal: How to Write Into the Dark

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Topic: How to Write Into the Dark * A Recommendation * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “My students and I are currently working on finding a concrete theory of time travel with multiple histories that is fully compatible with general relativity.” Barak Shoshany, Assistant Professor, Physics, Brock University “Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.” W. H. Auden via The Passive Voice … Read more

The Journal: I’m a Fortunate Guy

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Topic: I’m a Fortunate Guy * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.” Michael Moorcock “What does figuring out the schedule mean? It means I had to figure out what I was writing when. Then I had to figure out a realistic word count for the week/day. Then I had to do math to figure out when I would finish Project #1 and so on and so forth.” Kristine Kathryn Rusch “Spend thirty minutes on Writer Bewarehttps://writerbeware.blog/ to see … Read more

The Journal: I Had to Laugh

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * I had to laugh * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “If I’ve done my job in the first two hours, the audience will believe anything I tell them at the end.” Director Steven Spielberg on making up stuff in fiction “Tip: Non-outliners — write the story then add the foreshadowing.” Steve Hooley, TKZ, on foreshadowing (grin) I Had to Laugh I had to laugh, albeit in a good-natured way, when I first read that second quote. Yeah, I’m gonna take advice on how to write into the dark from an … Read more

The Journal: Critiques? Um, No.

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Topic: Critiques? Um, No. * Of Interest Quote of the Day “[U]sing someone else’s idea without using their expression of that idea is not copyright infringement. Copyright protects the expression of ideas, not ideas themselves.” The Passive Guy Topic: Critiques? Um, No. Disclaimer 1 — I’ll say up front that if you are one who actively seeks out criticism of your work from readers or from other writers, that’s fine. None of my business. To each your own. Disclaimer 2 — I’ll also say I’m not talking here about copyeditors or … Read more

The Journal: A New Blog on Substack

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * A New Blog on Substack * A Great Series of Emails * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “We professional writers just write. It is what we do. But I would not write as much as I like to write if I didn’t have something, some sort of challenge or deadline or goal that I wanted to hit at the moment. The challenges, the goals, the deadlines are shields against the real world distractions.” Dean Wesley Smith “[T]he secret of writing. Have fun. If it is not fun, don’t do it. … Read more

The Journal: Editing? Nope, Not Me

In today’s Journal * Thanks, Fabien * Thanks, Danny * Topic: Editing? Nope, Not Me * Of Interest Thanks Fabien Thanks to a response from French author Fabien Delorme on a comment I left on Dean’s site, I revised both my author site at HarveyStanbrough.com and my publisher site at StoneThreadPublishing.com. Check them out if you like. Things are a lot easier to find. The former is now more about Writers, and the latter is more about The Writing. I’ll be working on the sites a bit more today, and maybe writing a little too. Thanks, Danny And thanks to … Read more

The Journal: The Final Brandon Sanderson Post

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * The Final Brandon Sanderson Post * In other news * Still writing * Of Interest Quote of the Day “A quick search of the publishing category on Kickstarter, sorted for active campaigns, showed me book projects that have funded and brought in (so far) anywhere from $50,000 to $500. The bulk of these are in the $10,000 category per novel … which is, roughly, what any new writer can expect from traditional publishing these days.” Kristine Kathryn Rusch The Final Brandon Sanderson Post If you don’t read anything else today, be … Read more