Month: August 2022

End of the Hiatus

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * End of the Hiatus * TinyLetter? Um, No * About Paid Reviews * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.” Bertrand Russell “Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward.” Princess Diana End of the Hiatus I seem unable to stop playing with the Journal. There’s just too much to pass along, whether positive thoughts on writing, interesting posts by other writers, or warnings like the one below … Read more

Response to a Mentoring Student

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Topic: Response to a Mentoring Student * On Paid Book Reviewers * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “[I]f your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.” David Foster Wallace Topic: Response to a Mentoring Student Here’s a response I sent to one of my mentoring students yesterday morning. I did change it a little or add to it here and there. But since it was already largely written, I had only to copy and paste it, then schedule the post to release this morning. The whole process, … Read more

The Hiatus Explained

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * The Hiatus Explained * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” Mark Twain The Hiatus Explained To anyone who’s annoyed at my announcement yesterday that I’m taking a few days away from the Journal, sorry about that. In a way, your annoyance is a compliment, but I promise, my intention is to be away only temporary. Oh, and to my mentoring students, I will still respond to you during this hiatus. No worries there … Read more

Getting It

In today’s Journal * Possibly A Brief Hiatus * Last Day of Dean’s Workshop Sale * Topic: Getting It * Of Interest Possibly A Brief Hiatus There’s a good chance I’ll take a brief hiatus from posting to the Journal for a few days to reset my fiction-writing schedule. I was reminded recently of how very prolific I was a year ago. I want to get back to that all-consuming joy. I also want to reset my Journal-writing, mentoring (seriously considering adding another level), and other-stuff schedule. Of course, I’ll continue to make my rounds of the internet, and sometimes … Read more

Aspiring Authors

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Welcome and Back to 10 * Topic: Aspiring Authors * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Aspiring authors, get this through your head. Cover art serves one purpose, and one purpose only, to get potential customers interested long enough to pick up the book to read the back cover blurb. In the internet age that means the thumb nail image needs to be interesting enough to click on. That’s what covers are for.” Larry Correia Welcome and Back to 10 Welcome to laider7. I hope you find the Journal useful. Glad … Read more

The Journal: The Value of Goals

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * TinyLetter? * Topic: The Value of Goals * Of Interest Quote of the Day “I’m ready to finally take the plunge into WITD.” Chynna Pace I love that kind of committment. (grin) No “thinking” no “considering” no “maybe.” Just a healthy dose of Let’s Do This. TinyLetter? Has anyone else heard of TinyLetter? It’s by MailChimp, but it costs nothing and is absolutely no-frills. When I closed my MailChimp account, with its dying breath it said I might want to check out TinyLetter. I’m glad I did. TinyLetter is billed as … Read more

The Journal: It Worked!

In today’s Journal * Welcome * It Worked! * Of Interest Welcome Welcome to Chynna P, Russ J, gldlubala (GD, I think), Frank T, and any others who have subscribed recently. Glad to have you aboard. If you’re interested in a particular aspect of the writing craft, enter a search term in the Search box in the left sidebar at the Journal website. As an alternative or in addition, you may also download the free, fully searchable PDF archives. And of course, you may always email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. I’d be happy to help in any way with your writing … Read more

The Journal: Moving, and The First Reader

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Moving to MailerLite * Topic: The First Reader * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “Binance executive Patrick Hillmann alleges hackers successfully used an AI-generated hologram to impersonate him on video calls with cryptocurrency firms….” Techjuice (Science fiction ideas, anyone?) “No passion in the world, no love or hate, is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.” H. G. Wells Moving to MailerLite Hello everyone. This post will come to you twice today if everything works as planned. You will receive this one at 10 a.m. from MailChimp, but … Read more

The Journal: Do I Use a Copyeditor?

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Topic: Do I Use a Copyeditor? * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “Science fiction is the only genuine consciousness-expanding drug.” Arthur C. Clarke “Without goals, training has no direction.” Natalie Coughlin which is why I recommend a daily word-count goal “So next time you sit down at your writing computer, just let the creative voice run and play…. You might be surprised at how much fun you have writing and how good what you write turns out to be (if you leave it alone.)” Dean Wesley Smith “Do or do … Read more

The Journal: Playing Catch-Up and a Personal Note

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Playing Catch-Up * The Older We Get (a personal note) * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “Inspiration is throttled by indecision, hesitation and self-doubt.” Dan Baldwin “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” Dorothy Parker Playing Catch-Up Early this month, Bob C. wrote, “I stumbled across this today and thought it was excellent: https://literariness.org/2019/01/02/analysis-of-elmore-leonards-novels/.” If you’re a fan of Elmore Leonard’s work, there you go. Bob also related this personal anecdote: “I’ve always been a huge Elmore Leonard fan, maybe because I met him when … Read more