On Taking Your Time

by

In Today’s Journal

* On Taking Your Time
* The Power of a Streak
* Guest Posts Welcome
* Dean Wesley Smith Writes
* The Novel Wrapped
* Last Day!
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

On Taking Your Time

Another Excellent Example

A couple of days ago, “Before I Forget” went live on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free. And I got comments:

James Ron commented,

“Intense, Harvey. Enjoyed it a lot. It had me wondering why the ref and Tats didn’t stop the fight as injuries mounted. Had me thinking it was a hit job.”

Carrie commented,

“Yes, the ‘if they ever arrived’ made me think maybe the trainer didn’t call anyone. Or at least not help.”

The combination of those comments caused me to reply with this:

“In my mind (if I recall) it was NYC, a seedy fight in a seedy, crowdy, noisy arena, a washed-up boxer (his mind going or gone from too many beatings (but he “hadda keep fightin’), overworked ambulance crews, etc.

“Unfortunately what was ‘in my mind’ didn’t make it onto the page. See why I keep saying take your time, be sure what’s in your head as the story unfolds makes it onto the page?”

A writer should never feel the need to explain what was “in his mind’ as a story unfolds (though at times you will). All of that should make it onto the page.

Just to be clear, I’m not annoyed with the readers or even upset with myself. This is just one more example of a valuable learning experience.

Every reader’s different and will take different things from a story. The point is to always glean what you can and learn from those comments. NOT to rewrite a particular story, but to apply what you’ve learned as you write the next and the next.

Get it?

Thanks to both James and Carrie for their valuable comments.

The Power of a Streak

is why I continue to post new issues of TNDJ daily or almost daily. It’s ridiculous, really, how much power streaks and habits and routines have over us.

Over and over again I encounter writers’ blogs in which the writer posts only once a month or slightly more often. I’m not quite sure how they do that, but I’m constantly toying with the idea. Bearing that in mind…

Guest Posts Welcome

If there’s a writing or publishing topic you know well, consider sharing that knowledge with others by writing a guest post for TNDJ.

Note: I will not entertain posts that encourage the fear-based myths of fiction writing (outlining/plotting, rewriting X number of times, etc.), but anything else is welcome.

If you’re in doubt about whether your topic would make a good guest post for TNDJ, I welcome queries at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. Any editing I do will be necessary and light.

Also, I’d be happy to link to your website, Amazon or Facebook (etc.) page, to books you want to promote, and so on. (Please provide the links.)

Dean Wesley Smith Writes

“Over on the WMG Writer store, Kris has started up a brand new series of Craft workshops.

“They are three weeks long with a last week webinar. The series is called Quick and Dirty Solutions… First one is Taste and Smell, the two hardest senses.

“These are $150 and include videos from Kris, Kris answering homework assignments for two weeks, and an hour-long webinar for her to answer your questions at the end.”

I mention this because especially if you’re a beginning writer (published fewer than 10 novels or say 50 or 60 short stories) this might be right up your alley.

The Novel Wrapped

Well, it wrapped after I wrote around 230 words past the end. When it all started turning to mush, I backed up, found the ending, and cut everything after that.

That happened a few times with individual novels in the Wes Crowley saga and with a few short stories, but never before with the Blackwell Ops series.

Also, I almost always include romance elements in my novels (especially in Blackwell Ops because it lends itself to romance).

But this one turned out to be almost equal parts Romance and Action-Adventure. Odd bird. Anyway, it’s off my desk and winging its way to my first reader. We’ll see what he thinks.

Update: The annotated file is already back from Russ. He liked it. I’m good with that. (grin)

Last Day!

I extended this sale, but only for a few hours.

Writing Better Fiction has pretty much everything you need to write excellent fiction.

The sale ends today, March 16, at 11:59 p.m. (MST). Until then, you can get Writing Better Fiction for 30% off (under $10.00).

To get this deal,

Of Interest

Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: Expectations

Update On My Challenge Some gems here.

Society and Culture

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 800

Writing of Blackwell Ops 39: More Paul Stone

Day 1…… 2789 words. To date…… 2789
Day 2…… 3308 words. To date…… 6097
Day 3…… 2019 words. To date…… 8116
Day 4…… 4404 words. To date…… 12520
Day 5…… 3598 words. To date…… 16118
Day 6…… 4106 words. To date…… 20224
Day 7…… 3421 words. To date…… 23645
Day 8…… 2418 words. To date…… 26063
Day 9…… 2758 words. To date…… 28821
Day 10…. 3355 words. To date…… 32176
Day 11…. 2121 words. To date…… 34297 (done)

Fiction for March…………………….. 45806
Fiction for 2025………………………. 231637
Nonfiction for March………………….. 15140
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 69070
2025 consumable words…………….. 294197

Average Fiction WPD (March)……… 3054

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 6
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 110
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 281
Short story collections……………………. 29

Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.

If you are able, please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!

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Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.