Professional Writer Series

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, Wednesday, January 10

Hey Folks, A personal good-news item that might be of some interest: My wife and I have been married for almost 34 years. When we married, I brought three children to the mix and she brought one. We never used or allowed the term step-anything (son or daughter, brother or sister). We saw no reason to differentiate among the children. After all, the situation was no fault of theirs. For various reasons, I was never able to adopt our eldest son, who was originally named Jason Griffith Smith. Also, Jason’s maternal grandfather passed away a few years ago, and he … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, January 9

Hey Folks, Well, due to recent events, I’m shuffling my writing. For the first time I can remember, I have three works in progress: The Origin Novel (tentative title); “Storytellers,” the first short story of an eventual collection that will be titled The Less-Relatable Tales of a Desperado; and Autobiography, another novel I started this morning. The Origin Novel will continue as the primary work, occasionally but barely abated, because it’s what I want to write. I’ve wanted to write it for several years, but realized that fact only recently. The short story and the ensuing eventual collection is on … 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, Sunday, January 7

Hey Folks, Wow, strange day. I usually write a lot of what will become the day’s Journal entry early, then add to it off and on through the day. Today was supposed to be another nonwriting day, but it turned out about like yesterday did. But with a unique twist. I was working on my current work in progress when an idea sprang into my head. It was a morbid little thought, one more suited for my person Eric Stringer than for me. Or maybe even for my character, Charles Claymore Task. Charlie would love it. Anyway, for about an … 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, Friday, January 5

Hey Folks, A few of you who shared your writing goals with me either in the comments or via email. Thanks! I like knowing what other writers are doing and how they do it. Okay, so I’m gonna talk about goals again. As always, this is just me tossing in my two cents, nothing more. If you have a weekly or monthly goal, remember it gets easier if you divide it by five or six or seven and break it down to a daily goal. You can’t always eat an elephant or even a good-sized cow, but you can almost … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, January 4

Hey Folks, Dean accidentally deleted his post from yesterday. He wrote over it, he said in today’s post. So if you go there looking for it, you won’t find it. There wasn’t a lot to it anyway. I got up a little late this morning, and still didn’t start on the novel until 9. An hour later, I had just over 1000 words. So a good start on the day. A break, then to the post office, then a slightly early lunch. Damp (in the air), chilly and heavily overcast here today, so the babies are staying inside mostly. Well, … 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