In today’s Journal * A New Short Story * Yesterday * On Writer’s Block and Ray Bradbury * Of Interest * The Numbers A New Short Story “Barbecue” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin) Yesterday Weird. Yesterday I wrote my short story for the week: “Lars Manhattan and the Toast of the Town.” I suspect it’s the worst piece of crap I’ve ever written, but I also suspect the reader won’t be able to put it down. That’s what I … Read more

In today’s Journal * A Brief Lesson on Averages * Coming Up Soon * Of Interest * The Numbers A Brief Lesson on Averages Okay, one, when you miss a day of writing or fall short of your daily goal, believe in yourself. You know you are capable of writing 1000 or 2250 words per day. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have joined in the Great September Challenge. Likewise my own challenge for this month is to write 3000 words per day. But again, that’s on average. And I’ve kept a running daily average below in Numbers so you can … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * The Writing * Seven Tips on Ghostwriting * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “When writing and making up stuff isn’t fun, there is a basic rule… You are doing it wrong.” Dean Wesley Smith The Writing I didn’t get much done on the novel yesterday. Switching routines in the middle of my personal internet outage and all that. Anyway, the novel will wrap in another day or two. In the meantime, my poor performance today ALMOST pulled my average down below 3000 wpd. But not quite. (See? … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * A Note on the September Challenge * The Bradbury Challenge Writers Reporting * Free Book Plus a Brand Spanking New Newsletter! * Of Interest * The Numbers Quotes of the Day Seriously, no matter what kind of fiction you write, take these quotes to heart. All are courtesy of a longtime friend and excellent fictionist. Thanks, Michaele! “If you aren’t having a blast and writing from the heart, then what’s the point?” Sarah Hogle, Romance author “As long as you know your characters, everything else kind of takes care of itself.” … Read more

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Taking Your Time: A Before and After Example * Of Interest * The Numbers Quote of the Day “Thinking is fun, but it doesn’t produce anything.” Patrick Dorn Taking Your Time: A Before and After Example (Personal to my first reader—Russ, this will not give away the story.) The following before and after example is from my current novel. I rarely share a work in progress, but I routinely do what you will see below in cycling. This is an example of why I talk so often about slowing down and … Read more

In today’s Journal * A New Short Story * Reminder * Yesterday I Closed the Door * Okay, I Gotta Share This * Of Interest * The Numbers A New Short Story “The Baby” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin) Reminder Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get your story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday. Remember, if you finish a story earlier in the week, you can send it to me early too. … Read more

In today’s Journal * 10 Lesser Mistakes Writers Make, Part 2 * Of Interest * The Numbers 10 Lesser Mistakes Writers Make, Part 2 4. Using Likely as an Adverb (sigh)— I’ll get this one out of the way first. “Likely” is an adjective, albeit one that ends in “ly,” as do many adverbs. Despite its widespread misuse because it sounds cool or whatever, “likely” is synonymous with “probable,” another adjective. It is not synonymous with “probably,” an adverb. “Snowfall is probable” means exactly the same thing as “Snowfall is likely.” (In the second sentence, the unspoken but implied “to … Read more

In today’s Journal * A Foreword * Why “Lesser” Mistakes? * 10 Lesser Mistakes Writers Make, Part 1 * Of Interest * The Numbers A Foreword This post was getting long, so I broke it into two posts. Back in the day at writers’ conferences all over the nation and in Canada I presented a two-hour session on “Common Mistakes Writers Make.” At least once in every session, a writer would dismiss as unimportant the value of learning not to make those mistakes. The typical response was, “Why bother? Readers will know what I mean.” Every time, that comment left … Read more

In today’s Journal * A Foreword * The Top 7 Mistakes Writers Make, Part 2 * An Afterword * Of Interest * The Numbers A Foreword Yep, another foreword. This is the much-updated second half of on an article I originally posted over on my author site way back in 2013. I brought it forward again in 2022, and now here it is again. Even if you believe you’ve seen it before, please read it again. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can read it here. This post negates nothing I’ve said about allowing the characters to tell the story … Read more