Dean Wesley Smith

The Journal, Thursday, January 18

Hey Folks, Be sure to hit the “Of Interest” section below. There’s a lot there. It will seem overwhelming, but I read all of the info there in less than an hour. Either way, you don’t want to miss it. *** Well, the water heater started leaking last night. One of those times I’m glad I’m renting instead of buying. The owners know us well and trust us, so we do pretty much anything we want to the house and the property, but when big expenses come up (like replacing a water heater) that’s on them. It’s all good. I … 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, Tuesday, January 16

Hey Folks, Not a lot to report today. We had a quick trip to Sierra Vista to resolve the second life roll. Fortunately it turned out to be a much less eventful than it might have been. I wrote early this morning for an hour or so, and then a bit more after we got home. Those numbers are displayed below. Feels good to be back to the novel. See you then. Of Interest Linda Maye Adams posted “Perfectionism and Reading Fiction” at https://lindamayeadams.com/2018/01/15/perfectionism-and-reading-fiction/. See what you think. I might tackle this topic myself in a day or two. You … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, January 13

Hey Folks, Well, leave it to fate for interesting stuff to happen while I’m on the road. See (or listen to) “25 Book Promotion Tips” at http://blog.smashwords.com/2018/01/25-book-promotion-tips.html. For ideas on how one writer’s mind works, see Dean’s “One More Adventure Day” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/one-more-adventure-day/. It’s very short, but interesting. I wrote a little on the novel last night, but nothing to mention. More to keep my hand in than anything else, I think. By the way, I now have books available in nine different bundles, ranging from SF to action-adventure to romance to westerns. To check out these incredible values (newest … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, January 11

Hey Folks, Slow start to the day but a few great emails from friends. Thank you for those. I frittered away the first few hours with nothing of any importance (other than those emails). I moved out to the Hovel at around 8:45. I wrote much of what appears below, then started on the novel at around 10. Especially for the newer readers of this Journal, a bit about process today. I recommend hose of you who have been with me for awhile read it too, though. I might say something you need to hear, or say it in the … Read more

The Journal, Monday, January 8

Hey Folks, Be sure to see the “Of Interest” section today. There’s a lot of valuable information there. *** I had to catch my breath this morning for a moment. A blogger named Ola Kowalczyk, on her website (Ebook Friendly), posted a “Worldwide Map of Copyright Term Length” and cited Wikipedia. The map makes it appear that copyright law is changing in the US. (Don’t worry, it isn’t.) Currently a copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author. But according to the map she posted, beginning with works published in 2019, copyright will expire 95 years from the … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, January 6

Hey Folks, To my regular readers, I decided this morning to post these Journal updates to my Facebook “fan” page at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorStanbrough/. So I’m gonna write a little intro here for newbies. For those of you who are seeing this on Facebook, I’m a professional fiction writer. I have written 27 novels, 4 novellas, and over 180 short stories. This is an almost-daily Journal in which I update my progress on my current work in progress. In this Journal I also talk about various writing and publishing topics as well as some of the day-to-day stuff of living life as … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, January 3

Hey Folks, I’m constantly amazed at the variations among writer experiences. In that regard, there are several informative comments on Dean’s post from yesterday. You can see those at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/a-few-words-about-starting/#comments. I was gratified to see that a couple of commenters on Dean’s post took away some of the same things I got out of it. Amazing. We aren’t quite as insulated and alone as we sometimes believe we are. I also get an occasional blog post from a young writer named J.R. Murdock. You can see his latest at https://jrmurdock.com/2018/01/02/looking-back-moving-forward/. Like some of the folks who commented on Dean’s post, … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, January 2

Hey Folks, Well, my goals remain the same (on average, 2500 words of new fiction per day), but I’ve become all right about not writing for a day or two now and then. Part of that is a result of looking back on what I’ve done. I’m not willing to rest on my accomplishments, but I’m comfortable with them. So now it’s okay to set and reset my priorities. Due to several factors in my life, on most days writing is still Priority One. But on days when my wife is here or family members are visiting or I’m heading … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, December 27

Hey Folks, On Christmas Eve I created a test site I can use to try out new things before making them live here or on HarveyStanbrough.com. I was able to use a cloning engine, so I basically just moved HarveyStanbrough.com over there. Took about an hour to create a whole website. The technology amazes me. Anyway, while I was messing around on that test site, I noticed a few “drafts” of posts. I don’t use the Draft feature on WordPress, at least not intentionally, so I clicked one to have a look. Turns out it was an early draft of … Read more