Lee Lofland

The Daily Journal, Thursday, January 24

Hey Folks, I think a lot of you didn’t receive the Journal yesterday. My apologies. A glitch in the system. I hope now it’s been corrected. There’s a topic in yesterday’s post (“Speaking of Challenges and Goals”) as well as some great stuff in “Of Interest.” If you want to see it, please visit https://hestanbrough.com/the-daily-journal-wednesday-january-23/. At least for Phillip McCollum’s post in “Of Interest.” Since I was involved in cleaning up that mess, I also added a new RSS feed from from Pro Writer Blog to the left sidebar of the Journal. If you aren’t subscribed to Pro Writer Blog … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, January 8

Hey Folks, Numbers, numbers, numbers… I just realized, since I adjusted my goal from writing 10 novels in 100 days to writing 10 novels in 150 days, I don’t really need the daily goal of 4000 words per day. (grin) Most of my novels are in the 35,000 to 50,000 word range. For example, if I write at least 3000 words per day (on average) for 150 days, that’s 450,000 words. More than enough. But I’m gonna stay with the 4,000 words per day goal anyway because it stretches me a little. And if I can write 4,000 words per … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, January 3

Hey Folks, Today’s “Of Interest” is long and loaded with great links. I encourage you to read them. You’ll learn a ton. I considered pasting an excerpt of Kris Rusch’s post on Pricing here, but I decided against it. All you have to do is click the second link below and you’ll get the whole thing. And it’s good. To see what I was going to paste, scroll down to “Here’s [sic] the other things you need to do on setting the right price”. *** Whether or not you decide to use BookFunnel (mentioned recently by Kris Rusch), for some … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, January 2

Hey Folks, Our second snowfall of the year (yes, here in the desert) started this morning. Creating, of course, the illusion that the world has shifted on its axis and it’s going to snow every day during 2019. (grin) This is a “real” snow, with about 4″ on the ground at the moment and plenty more coming. My wife’s considering granting herself a 2-hour delay if she goes in at all. Fortunately, my own commute to the office is only about 200 feet outside my back door. (grin) *** We have one little hummingbird who stays with us year-round. He … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, January 1

Hey Folks, Be patient. There’s a LOT in today’s Journal and in the “Of Interest” section. I hope you will find most of it entertaining and/or useful. Happy new year, everybody! May we all have a year filled with peace and good health. I don’t mention prosperity because, after all, we really can’t take it with us. My strongest personal urge is to live as long as I can and leave a legacy of sorts. As they say down south, can I get a big “Hell yeah!”? Like so many, I’m personally glad 2018 is behind us. Without belaboring the … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, December 29

Hey Folks, Well, another day, another lesson. From now on, when I’m ending the writing day early for some special reason, I’ll check to make sure the special reason is worthwhile before I send off the Journal. (grin) Yesterday I shut down a little before noon. The football game I wanted to watch was well into the first quarter by then. So I sent off the Journal, closed the Hovel and headed for the house. Turned on the TV and saw the score was already 42 to 6. Oh my. Even though I like both teams (Auburn and Purdue), I … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, December 27

Hey Folks, I got into a short email discussion with a fellow novelist who also writes off into the dark. The upshot was, he wondered whether maybe — when a character does something that’s unexpected and out of character — it’s all right or even necessary to create a history for that character that would explain the unexpected action, a kind of character sketch (my term, not his). I decided to copy my response here as a topic. Topic: Writing Into the Dark, Take 2 I did a post on Writing Off Into the Dark over on the Pro Writers … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, December 20

Hey Folks, Very strange goings on here at the Stanbrough Camp for Odd People. Two days ago, I didn’t write any fiction at all. The story was there, but I wasn’t. Yesterday, I stopped a few hundred words short of 4,000 because I just ran out of steam. My fingers were beginning to hit the wrong keys. Today, just before noon, I had 4,967 words and was NOT out of steam. Part of it’s because the story is really flowing. And the part I finished today is a novellette at 9500 words. It’s the story that wants to be a … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, December 19

Hey Folks, J. L. Parker left a myth-riddled comment on Dean’s post about traditional publishing a few days ago (see the second item in “Of Interest”). Dean addressed a couple of points in his response. But J. L. aso wrote “if you want your book available in book stores and libraries as well as online … [you] have to go the traditional route.” This is the kind of misinformation that drives me crazy and can send untold numbers of writers awry. So in response, I left the following comment: For J. L., I can also say recently a LOT of … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, December 18

Hey Folks, Wow. I stayed up to watch about 3/4 of the football game last night. It was difficult to watch the Saints pitted against both the Panthers and the referees (grin), so I finally gave up. But by then it was late. I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed up even later and didn’t roll out this morning until almost 5. Ugh. So a late start to the day. No Internet in the Hovel this morning, so I did the preliminary “Of Interest” stuff and this bit of the Journal up at the house with my first cup of coffee. … Read more