Cycling

The Journal, Wednesday, March 28

Hey Folks, Well, I spoke too soon. (grin) Yesterday I thought I saw the end of the WIP and figured I’d get there today. Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t. I’m still certain it’s near. But as I cycled back over what I wrote yesterday, I cut about 2000 words. I also created a cover for this one, so that’s done early. That’s it on the left. This wasn’t conscious-mind stuff. This was my characters (one good guy and one very bad guy) stopping dead still on the stage, staring out at me, and saying, “Uh… no.” So I … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, March 27

Hey Folks, Not a lot to report today, other than a good early day of writing. Between 4 and 8 with a few breaks I added a little over 3000 words to the novel. And the end is in sight. Given another hour, I’d finish it this morning, but I have to go to Tucson for the doc appointment. This will be a short novel. I should finish it tomorrow with what will probably be a light day of writing. When I sat down this morning, I wanted it to be a good writing day but I honestly didn’t have … Read more

The Journal, Monday, February 26

Hey Folks, In “Of Interest” today is an interesting article titled “Micro-Progress Your Novel.” Despite the high-falutin’ title, the article is all about eating an elephant one bite at a time. Instead of trying to “write a novel” (which the author of the post calls a “daunting prospect”), the idea is to set a series of smaller goals, like writing for a particular length of time (or number of words) per day or writing a scene. Or, I suppose, simply writing the next sentence. Sound familiar? Yeah, it sounds familiar to me too. But now that the process has a … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, February 7

Hey Folks, Not sure what I’ll do today for writing, other than this. We’ll see. In the meantime, Dean and Kris have come up with two new workshops. See “Of Interest” below. As it turned out, I wrote a blog post for HarveyStanbrough.com. Almost a thousand words. Some of you will like it. It’s titled “The Use of Italics, Revisited.” I moved the other pre-posted ones out, so the new one will post next Tuesday. Well, also as it turned out, today I finished cycling through the short story that I’m turning into a novel. It took about two hours … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, January 17

Hey Folks, Out to the Hovel at around 5:30 this morning. For newcomers, the Adobe Hovel is a storage building about 200 feet from my house. The walls are earth and about three feet thick. There’s no Internet there, so it makes an excellent writing environment. In fact, I leave my writing ‘puter out there most of the time on an ancient old folding card table. I wrote for a session, then back to the house to check on things around 7. Back out for another session around 8:30, then back to the house at about 10. I’ll do one … Read more

The Journal, Friday, January 5

Hey Folks, A few of you who shared your writing goals with me either in the comments or via email. Thanks! I like knowing what other writers are doing and how they do it. Okay, so I’m gonna talk about goals again. As always, this is just me tossing in my two cents, nothing more. If you have a weekly or monthly goal, remember it gets easier if you divide it by five or six or seven and break it down to a daily goal. You can’t always eat an elephant or even a good-sized cow, but you can almost … Read more

The Journal, Friday, 10/6

Hey Folks, Well, another long post, but one I think you’ll find is worth it. First, while searching for something else, I ran across an article titled “Master of Magic Realism Harvey Stanbrough is Offering a Free Short from His Collection of Cantina Tales.” You can see the brief article at https://davidjrodger.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/master-of-magic-realism-harvey-stanbrough-is-offering-a-free-short-from-his-collection-of-cantina-tales/. I remembered I had left a ‘thank you’ note in a comment below the article. I never received a reply or a follow-up comment. This morning I clicked the home page of that WordPress.com site, and I learned that David J. Rodger passed away the same day that … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, 10/5

Hey Folks, Well, another long post today. Sorry about that. (grin) It turns out I wrote quite a bit yesterday, considering. I revised the total yesterday before the Journal posted, and today’s numbers are current.  I don’t remember the last time I had such a great day as yesterday. It’s like someone turned on a light. One thing I realized was that my current WIP isn’t “just” a PI-noir novel but a PI-noir suspense novel. That’s what it was wanting to be, and that’s where I took the wrong turn. Topic: Writing Environment The post by Nate Hoffelder in “Of … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, 10/4

Hey Folks, Well, this is a long post. Awhile back, Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader mentioned that soon Google will begin prioritizing sites (in search results) that are secure (https vs. http). As a result, I was going to spend part of the day today converting my main website over to https. But the more I read, the more I suspect SSL is primarily a necessity for monetized sites, which mine is not. Everything on the site itself is free, and anything that can be ordered goes through a secure site elsewhere: Amazon, B&N, PayPal, etc. The cost involved … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, 10/3

Hey Folks, Rolled out on time this morning and went through my usual routine, albeit in 47 degree weather. It wouldn’t be bad, but there was a light breeze. Brrr. For my first sojourn outside this morning I was in sweatpants, a long-sleeved thermal shirt, and a thick, hooded zip-up sweat shirt. (grin) It wasn’t pretty, but it was dark, so…. And to think when I was living in Indiana I was running around outside without even a t-shirt on in 30 degree weather. Of course, I was wearing pants ’cause the cops get picky over stuff like that. After … Read more