KillZone Blog

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, Monday, February 12

Hey Folks, My excellent first reader, Kenneth Flowers (krf1952@gmail.com) got my 28th novel back to me via email yesterday with his feedback. I’m such a fortunate guy. He said he looks forward to the sequels, which served to remind me I wanted to write some sequels, that Keeper of the Promise was only the origin novel for a series. (grin) So there’s that. At the moment I’m deep in an SF novel, and then I hope to take a shot at writing a thriller. But sequels. Yes. I spent most of yesterday working on the StoneThread Publishing website and reading … 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, Friday, January 19

Hey Folks, Well, the ending of The Origin Novel snuck up on me this morning. I figured it would be at least a few more days, but I turned a corner and there it was. It’s now titled The Keeper of the Promise, with The Origin Novel as the subtitle. As you know, much of the process on this one was me cycling back through stuff I’d already written. I started with five short stories. When the dust cleared, I had cut two complete short stories that didn’t figure into the novel (or did so only peripherally) plus about another … Read more

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 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, Saturday, December 23

Hey Folks, I’m psyched. Even yesterday, in 20° weather, I was thinking what a wonderful day it is to be alive. The same holds true today. I have some great things coming up in the new year. They have nothing to do with traditional new year’s resolutions — those always are losing propositions for me, invitations to fail — but the things I’m looking forward to do have a lot to do with writing (of course). And they’re made bigger and better and more fun by the fact that, other than a few vague ideas floating around in my brain … Read more