Dean Wesley Smith

The Journal, Monday, February 19

Hey Folks, There’s a lot of good stuff in “Of Interest” today, and this is a long post. Steel yourself. Well, my buddy and I got back a day early from camping. Actually, as rain clouds closed in, we climbed a hill, took a look at the horizon in all directions, and decided the better part of valor at the moment was retreat. (grin) So we hobbled back down to the campsite, packed up and hauled a… Um, I mean, departed the area. Sure enough, all the way back heavy rainclouds followed the Gila, west to east, off to our … Read more

The Journal, Friday, February 16

Hey Folks, My apology in advance for the long post. I promise, it’s worthwhile. After I signed off yesterday I listened to a few more videos from the “Writing Thrillers” workshop. Good stuff. Today I’ll probably finish the workshop, then work on some new book pages for StoneThread Publishing. Eventually, each major book we publish will have its own page. The pages for the novels and short story collections (or most of them) are finished. I only need to add a few of those and then code a new page for each nonfiction book. But back to the workshop for … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, February 14

Hey Folks, Happy St. Valentine’s Day! Well, I’m learning a lot about writing thrillers from reading Jack Higgins and Lee Child. But I’m all about cutting learning curves (mine and other’s) so this morning I also signed up for Dean’s “Writing Thrillers” online workshop. It’s a classic workshop, meaning no homework, but it’s also half-price at only $150. Six weeks of instruction, and I’ll get through it in a week or so. Probably I’ll work on that whenever I need a break from prepping my latest novel for publication or working on the StoneThread Publishing website. Another good thing about … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, February 13

Hey Folks, Not sure what’s going on in my head currently. I have to slow down, I know that much. Probably today I’ll try to finish getting StoneThread Publishing up to par, and then do the necessary things to publish my previous novel. I gave up on the notion of reading it to my wife. We’re both too tired in the evenings for that sort of thing. When I do return to writing, well, I’m kind of losing interest in my WIP, The Age Exchange. Not really, but sort of. The thing is, I’m itching to write a true thriller. … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, February 8

Hey Folks, Good stuff in “Of Interest” again today. Well, mostly a day off today. Mona will be at work this morning. While she’s doing that I’ll be working on a copyedit of her recent memoir. That will probably take up the morning and part of tomorrow. Otherwise, I’ll spend an hour or two reading today. Then this afternoon we’re going to Sierra Vista for a combination of shopping and just getting away for a few hours. Of Interest See “Eight Ways to Tell if Your Author Site Has Been Hacked” at https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/02/07/eight-ways-tell-author-site-hacked/. There’s a cute video re Dean’s new … 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, Thursday, February 1

Hey Folks, Well, here we go again. I was out in the Hovel poking around and found another short story that I’ve wanted, for awhile, to turn into a novel. The short story is titled “Going Back,” and it was considerably larger than itself even when I first wrote it. I’m interested to see where it will go and to watch it develop. As I glanced over it, the characters begain speaking to me and my fingers began moving over the keyboard. Before I realized it I’d added over 1000 new words. Feels good when that happens. I’ll be interrupted … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, January 28

Hey Folks, I think we’re nearly over being ill. Other than this tiny bit of writing, I’ll spend the rest of the day doing nothing. The plan for tomorrow is to write and to work on the copyedit I received recently. Awhile back I mentioned that I wish Mark Coker over at Smashwords would publish a print version of his podcasts for those of us who would rather read than listen. Finally this morning I found he’s been doing that all along. You can find the Smart Author Podcast homepage at https://www.smashwords.com/podcast. Once you’re there, you’ll see all the episodes … Read more

The Journal, Friday, January 26

Hey Folks, Wow. It’s been an eventful week, and it isn’t over yet. Mona and I both caught the creeping crud hyper-flu that’s apparently going around in various parts of the US. I am a writer, so my first thought was Conspiracy. But I was too weak to even think about writing (or holding my head up) and besides, The Stand was already written. Got another copyediting job in late last week or early this week. (Thanks for the referral, Robert!) I’m publishing this today only to let you know things finally SEEM to be clearing around the Stanbrough camp, … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, January 20

Hey Folks, Another note on process. Despite the word count I posted earlier for The Keeper of the Promise: The Origin Novel, after omitting the two short stories I mentioned yesterday, and after a few thousand words of other cuts, the novel finally came in yesterday at 56620 words. Last night as I glanced over it, I realized it was mostly complete and flows well. The one thing I didn’t do was set up the protagonist as a series character with a lead-in to the next books. Not good, since I wrote the thing in the first place to lead … Read more