Trusting Yourself as a Writer

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Trusting Yourself as a Writer * Video Stuff * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “There’s some sort of circle involving self-trust where the more you trust your ability to create, the easier it becomes.” Garry Rodgers, unknowingly helping me write this blog post Trusting Yourself as a Writer On Garry Rodgers’ Kill Zone blog post yesterday, I left this comment: “The lack of courage is the huge one. And to make it worse, the fear that immobilizes or radically slows so many has either no consequences or … Read more

Advice on Self-Publishing

In today’s Journal * Advice on Self-Publishing * Of Interest * The Numbers Advice on Self-Publishing First, please also see my Quick Guide to Self-Publishing & FAQs, Toward Efficiency in Epublishing, and The Essentials of Digital Publishing. You can download each of them, free, by visiting https://hestanbrough.com/the-daily-journal-archives-gifts-dvds/ and clicking the links. Please take advantage of these gifts. What brought this topic to mind? A writer friend asked a few questions yesterday about starting out in self-publishing. I thought I’d expand here on the answer I gave him. Picking the Name of Your Publishing Company—I’ve used StoneThread Publishing, my publishing company … Read more

Reworking My Routine, and Big Brother

In today’s Journal * Reworking My Routine and Schedule * Big Brother Might Be Closer Than You Believe * Of Interest * The Numbers Reworking My Routine and Schedule I’m using the final few days of June to focus on reworking my routine and schedule. I’ve come up with a new challenge for myself: to get back to my production levels of January 1 through July 31 2021, during which time I wrote 13 novels, a novella, and two short stories, comprising 534,744 words of published fiction. Don’t let the big number deceive you. That time span is 212 days, … Read more

Another Video and the Bradbury Challenge

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Another Video, a Little More Advice * Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “Surveillance techniques familiar to authoritarian dictatorships have now been repurposed to target American workers.” Wired Magazine Another Video, a Little More Advice I made a spur of the moment video yesterday from my little writing ‘puter. Oops. After the fact I found the sound was out of sync with the video. (If you restart the vid a time or two, the sound syncs.) The vid ran about 12 minutes. You … Read more

Make Finding Your Books Easy for the Reader

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Make Finding Your Books Easy for the Reader * About Dean Wesley Smith * Re the Livestreams * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “Writing by a deadline can be a really good thing and does wonders because you don’t have time to think. Just relax and follow your characters around and they take care of the rest.” Christopher Ridge, Horror writer “I lost some time once. It’s always in the last place you look for it.” Neil Gaiman Make Finding Your Books Easy for the Reader Yup, … Read more

More Notes on YouTube

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * More Notes on YouTube * Disillusionment * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” Jack Dempsey More Notes on YouTube I came to write this right after I closed my livestream yesterday. I think it ran for about 15 minutes, and I know I rambled a bit. Mea culpa, of course. Who else? Not a big deal. All part of the learning curve. Re the rambling, for my next livestream, I’ll probaby make a few notes so I have … Read more

More About YouTube

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * My First YouTube Video * More About YouTube * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten.” Neil Gaiman “Just write one true sentence.” Ernest Hemingway My First YouTube Video You can see it at https://youtube[dot]com/live/NJj5bpcw4J4. Lasts all of maybe 6 minutes. One thing I learned (on watching the video separately myself later) is not to turn the computer away from me while … Read more

To Sell More Books, Stop Selling Books

In today’s Journal * To Sell More Books, Stop Selling Books * Guest Posts * Of Interest * The Numbers To Sell More Books, Stop Selling Books guest post by Matt Perryman Matt Perryman graciously offered the following as a guest post a few days before it goes live on his own Substack. Visit Matt’s Meaningful Particulars substack at https://mattpmn.substack.com. I encourage you to visit and consider subscribing. The other day while browsing a reasonably popular writing blog, I read a post about creating an email newsletter. The post was full of horrible advice. The nuts ‘n bolts stuff was … Read more

First Livestream Delayed

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * First Livestream Delayed * Speaking of Writing Fiction * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “The publishers and the printers are making more money than you are, and you’re the writer. They vacation in the Hamptons while you struggle to pay the rent. Tell me that makes sense.” Vincent Zandri on traditional publishing First Livestream Delayed I was playing around with my internal camera’s video settings and didn’t like what I saw on the screen. Then I realized it was “broadcasting” at only 720p. I’ll never hit studio … Read more

Writing Crappy First Drafts, and Bradbury Challenge

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Thanks * Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting * Writing Crappy First Drafts… * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day “Well begun is half done.” Aristotle “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” Mark Twain Thanks to everyone who subscribed to my new YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@HarveyStanbrough and-or to the StanbroughWrites substack at https://stanbroughwrites.substack[dot]com/. I appreciate your support and I will do my best not to disappoint you. Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting You can still join in the challenge at any time. There’s no cost … Read more