John Gilstrap

The Journal: Not Tag-Line Verbs (Update)

In today’s Journal * Welcome * Topic: Not Tag-Line Verbs (Update) * Of Interest * The Numbers Welcome Here I am, barely blogging along after having written a post almost every day for years, and a new reader subscribed yesterday. Welcome, my new friend from Melbourne. While my blogging is less frequent than before, I invite you to use the tag cloud or search box to check for posts on topics that might interest you. A few more folks have joined us over the past couple of weeks too. Welcome, all. Topic: Not Tag-Line Verbs (Update) A couple of posts … Read more

The Daily Journal, Wednesday, March 13

In today’s Journal ▪ Welcome and today in “Of Interest” ▪ Topic: What Is a Scene? ▪ Update on my challenge ▪ Daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers Welcome to our newest subscriber, Judy M. Thanks for coming along for the ride, Judy. Tell Ron W. I miss his tired old self. (grin) (By the way, most of my Journal entries aren’t quite as long as this one. You picked a good day to start.) Today in “Of Interest” John Gilstrap (at TKZ) talks about what constitutes a scene. He has an interesting take, and he asked readers … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, December 16

Hey Folks, Quote of the day (to consider, on distractions): “…email [is] an infinite hamster wheel powered by other people’s priorities.” — Jake Knapp on Medium (see “Of Interest”) And another: “…write excellent books. That’s the only ironclad, long-tail secret to a career.” — James Scott Bell (see “Of Interest”) And one more: “Don’t let being a writer interfere with actually writing.” — John Gilstrap (see “Of Interest”) *** Just in case seeing my own reckoning with this “test” of December might help you, I’ll lay it out here each day in detail (when the detail matters). I rolled out … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, October 24

Hey Folks, Over the past two days, I’ve written lengthy topics as part of my Journal posts. I’ve included another one today on The Reverse Outline. And I probably will include another one tomorrow on A Different Kind of Outline (for those who would like a safety net). These posts are mostly for new folks who have subscribed to the Journal or who follow along on Facebook. But I enourage those of you who’ve been with me awhile to read over them too. Even if it’s a topic you’ve seen before, you might pick up something you can use. It … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, September 26

Hey Folks, Well, the doc appointment yesterday went well. I found out I get my new internal pacemaker/defibrillator on the morning of October 4. I also learned we won’t find out whether my heart function will improve or how much for a month or longer. (They recommend three months, but expect to see a trend in one month.) So we’ll see how that goes. Either way, it just is what it is, and I’m entering a new stage of life. In the Corps we had a saying we used to toss back and forth when we were confronted by a … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, September 12

Hey Folks, Something around four to five years ago, I created a persona named Nicolas Z Porter. Nick and I and three other personas (Gervasio Arrancado, Ray Sevareid, and Eric Stringer) enjoyed a wild ride. Overall, Porter was the persona under which I wrote stories that felt Hemingway-esque to me. They were more brusque, more on-point, stark shades of grey on a white background with the occasional splash of vivid color. Often the color was red-drying-to-black. Of the other personas, Arrancado wrote Latin American magic realism, Sevareid wrote science fantasy, and Stringer wrote weird, psychological-suspense stuff. Though Eric’s personality was … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, August 29

Hey Folks, Via The Passive Voice, the author of an article at Fast Company states one of the goals of a “3D novel” she wrote was to articulate “some of our generation’s concerns in the sense of … how can we find a future worth living for.” That got my curmudgeonly hackles up. Maybe because I’ve always had one foot in my father’s generation and one in my own. Maybe because I’ve been close to death a few times. Maybe because I think manufactured-drama is a silly way to shore up your own sense of self-esteem. Yawn, stretch. Yeah, well, … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, August 1

Hey Folks, Well, yesterday’s trip to Tucson was mostly a waste of time. The upshot was I have to go back in early September for another test. In retrospect, that is the test I should have had yesterday. But as with all things, it will be what it will be. Nothing to worry about. Just little annoyances, the largest of which is the putrid, festering intrusion of insurance company mandates into what should be purely medical decisions. Today, writing will be even more of a joyful escape than usual. *** The “first-page critique” offered by the Kill Zone blog has … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, July 28

Hey Folks, Today’s Journal entry is all about writing advice, the Kill Zone blog, and the “Of Interest” section of this Journal. In my own hunt for writing advice, I seek out other professional writers who are farther along the road than I. Once I find them, I gauge whether their advice is valuable to me overall. If a blog post is rife with misspellings and wrong word usages, awkward phrases and misplaced modifiers, or if they display a certain level of ignorance about the language (for example, ignorance of the difference between “likely” and “probably” or “if” and “whether” … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, July 18

Hey Folks, Today’s post is long. It’s all about professional resources… I went through my links yesterday, deleted any authors’ websites that are about nothing but the author, new releases, etc. I’m keeping only those that offer some insight for other writers. And I’ll be rearranging those today to make them easier to find. One person responded to my call for resources yesterday. (Thanks, Gnondpom.) The ones that were already listed in my Writers Resources or that I’ve added are preceded below by an asterisk (to let you know you can find them on my site later). The others are … Read more