Famous Writers Speak, and A New Novel

I did not want to embed videos in this post. I wanted only to display links. Why does WordPress and other platforms (ahem, Substack) remove our ability to choose? What does it possibly matter to them?

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Famous Writers Speak
* A Novel Published
* A New Novel
* Of Interest

Quote of the Day

“[T]rust your own writing and voice. Act like an artist instead of a doormat for heaven’s sake.” Dean Wesley Smith

Famous Writers Speak

I hope I’ve been intelligent enough to share these with you before, but just in case, here they are in a lot. I strongly recommend you listen to them, closely, as you have time. And bookmark them if you want. I won’t be sharing them again.

Note: I didn’t make the links active, so you’ll have to copy and paste them into your browser. If I’d made them active Substack would have automatically imbedded each video.

UPDATE: Well, apparently even WordPress automatically imbedded the videos. I don’t know how to stop them from doing that, so I won’t be posting anymore links to videos after this.

Dean Wesley Smith

Stephen King

Lee Child

Lee Child and George R. R. Martin

James Lee Burke

No doubt there are other YouTube videos available by these folks and others if you only do a quick search.

Keying in a name of someone from whom you would like to learn, clicking Search and then listening is a pretty small price to pay to learn from accomplished writers. Of course, I could be wrong.

Hint: This is about WRITING and STORY, so I suggest you key in the names of writers whose emphasis is on writing and storytelling, not their personal biases, political beliefs, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, etc.

A Novel Published

As I was publishing Wes Crowley: Deputy US Marshal yesterday, a feeling came over me that there would be probably three more titles in the Gap series over all. I’m not sure where that feeling came from, but I’ll run with it.

See the cover and description for Wes Crowley: Deputy US Marshal at http://stonethreadpublishing.com/wes-crowley-deputy-us-marshal/.

And to see how the Gap series is branded, visit https://stonethreadpublishing.com/the-wes-crowley-series/. Compare the covers from the third book in the first row to the last book in the second row. That’s the current Gap series.

A Brief History—For those of you who aren’t aware, I initially wrote a short story that featured Wes. Then I wrote a novel and two sequels. Then I wrote three prequels to the first novel followed by six more sequels to complete the 12-volume Wes Crowley saga. I thought (feared) that was all of the story.

But one day I noticed there was a 16-year gap between books 2 and 3 of that saga. And to be honest, I missed hanging out with Wes. So I started writing books to fill-in that gap. Hence, the Wes Crowley Gap series.

After I wrote the first five books of that series, the sixth one veered off into a new subseries: Santa Fe. And so far I’ve written three novels in that series. So that’s where we are now.

Of course, I’m not only a writer of period westerns. I also have action-adventure, suspense (thriller), science fiction and science fantasy, crime-PI-detective novels plus a police procedural or two. Browse the tabs over at StoneThread Publishing.

A New Novel

Anyway, Wes Crowley: Deputy US Marshal was the 20th novel in the Wes Crowley saga, the 8th in the Gap series, and the 3rd in the Santa Fe subseries. Fun, eh?

So as I said, I had a sense from somewhere that this Gap series will probably have three more novels. It might have more than that, but I don’t think it will have fewer.

And as I was publishing and glanced at the promo doc, I was also reminded of something fairly insignificant that happened in the beginning of this book, an event and characters—some old and some brand new “stimulus characters”—who will drive at least the next novel in the series.

So after I published the novel to D2D and Amazon and then came back here and wrote all this, I took a break. That expanded into a trip to the grocery in Benson, and then we treated ourselves to lunch.

We came home, I helped put away the groceries, and then I came back to the Hovel and started prepping for the next book. In my case, in this series, that means preparing the reverse-outline notepad document.

First I’ll transfer the names of places and characters who will carry over from the series into that book, then add blank chapter numbers down the left, etc. I tend to keep a running list of places and people from earlier novels at the bottom so I can find them.

An Interruption—Then, due to an unfortunate accident, I spent a couple of hours repotting a plant. We use the wide south-facing window in the front part of the Hovel as a greenhouse, and one of the plants overbalanced and fell over. Probably drinking again.

A couple hours later that plant was in a larger, more stable pot and scheduled for its first AA meeting. I’d also moved a few of the plants from the front window to the back window to give them all a bit more breathing room.

Then it was time to end the day and go relax for awhile with the TV.

This morning I’ll read back over the reverse outline and maybe the first few chapters of the novel I just finished to get those stimulus characters and their situation back into my head.

And then I’ll start fresh with the next novel. For the time being I’ll call it Wes Crowley: Deputy US Marshal 2. (The WCG9SF4 in the parentheses below stands for Wes Crowley Gap series novel 9, Santa Fe subseries novel 4).

And just like that, I’ll be off and playing again. Woohoo! I expect the first few days to be slow. Somehow, after leaving it for several years, I slipped back into watching the NFL playoffs this year. Shrug. Entertainment.

I might not be back for a few days.

Talk with you again later.

Of Interest

See “More Copyright Valuation” at https://deanwesleysmith.com/more-copyright-valuation/.

See “Tips From the Masters” at https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/.

See “7 Incredible Technologies That Will Terrify You” at https://join1440.com/listicles/7-incredible-technologies-that-will-terrify-you.

See “AI Chatbots Now Let You Talk to Historical Figures…” at https://mymodernmet.com/ai-history-chatbots/.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 1000 words

Writing of Wes Crowley: Deputy US Marshal 2 (WCG9SF4)

Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for January……… 36822
Total fiction words for 2023………… 36822
Total nonfiction words for January… 12950
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 12950
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 49772

Calendar Year 2023 Novels to Date…………………… 1
Calendar Year 2023 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2023 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 72
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer because of my zen-like non-process. If you want to learn it too, either hang around or download my Journal Archives at https://hestanbrough.com/the-daily-journal-archives/, read them, and try WITD for yourself. For the time being, the archives are free.