The Passive Voice

The Journal, Tuesday, March 13

Hey Folks, For the past three years, I’ve considered taking Dean’s Anthology Workshop. It’s live, on the Oregon Coast. It’s $650 plus hotel expenses, plus travel. So not cheap (at least for me). But I’m still considering it. Now, though, a recent attendee — and one who has attended the thing SIX times — has decided to blog about the experience. In a series of blog posts, best-selling dark fantasy author (and now editor) Ron Collins is going to dissect Dean’s Anthology Workshop. If you’ve ever even thought about taking that workshop (on the coast) this will be an important … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, March 10

Hey Folks, Well, I wasn’t really expecting to write today. But as it happens, I started my next novel. Makes me feel kind’a good. Now that I established who Stern Talbot is in the one I just published, I was thinking of writing a series of those. Not right now, of course. You know. Stern Talbot, P.I.: The Case of the …. This morning I went out to the Hovel, ostensibly to write, but I fully expected to spend an hour or so doing little or nothing. Maybe looking over some old story starts and seeing whether anything grabbed my … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, March 7

Hey Folks, Oof. Woke up out of sorts this morning. As a result, I didn’t start on the story until late. This almost always happens as I get near the end of a novel, long or short. This will be a short novel. (If you’d like to see my definitions of various fiction lengths, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. I’d be happy to send it to you.) The numbers below include things I’ve cut as I cycled back each day. The novel will probably come in (published) at around 33,000 words. I think I have only two or three more scenes … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, March 1

Hey Folks, I realized early this morning I hadn’t created a reverse outline for my WIP yet. So I started the day by doing that. For those who don’t know, a reverse outline is a reference tool. When I finish a chapter, I write a few notes about it (which characters are included, POV, what happens, any significant descriptions, etc.) on the reverse outline. Later in the WIP, if I need to find something quickly, I can just glance at my reverse outline instead of searching endlessly through the WIP for the information. It saves a lot of time and … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, February 28

Hey Folks, Well, there y’go. Last day of the month. I’m pretty sure I won’t finish my novel today, so I guess I’ll miss putting one out in February. (grin) Well, I won’t write a whole novel during February, but I published one yesterday. That’s the cover over there on the left. Came out okay, especially given that I’m considerably out of practice. I rolled out early this morning for some reason, around 2 a.m. Of course, I checked Dean’s site. At the time there were about 20 hours left in the North by Northwest Kickstarter. So I dropped in … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, February 27

Hey Folks, Guess it’s a good thing I got off my fanny yesterday with only three days left in the month (two now). (grin) It’s good to be writing again, playing with my little imaginary friends. I have other things I have to get done today, but I plan to write as well. *** Well, I ended up doing those other things instead of writing. I did write a little, but not enough to count. And I remembered that my previous novel, Keeper of the Promise, was not yet published. Sigh. I actually forgot about it. So I searched images, … Read more

The Journal, Monday, February 26

Hey Folks, In “Of Interest” today is an interesting article titled “Micro-Progress Your Novel.” Despite the high-falutin’ title, the article is all about eating an elephant one bite at a time. Instead of trying to “write a novel” (which the author of the post calls a “daunting prospect”), the idea is to set a series of smaller goals, like writing for a particular length of time (or number of words) per day or writing a scene. Or, I suppose, simply writing the next sentence. Sound familiar? Yeah, it sounds familiar to me too. But now that the process has a … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, February 21

Hey Folks, Well, a day of writing today I hope. Feeling a bit better I think, and not so much domestic stuff on my plate today. Just checking the PO later. I have a book coming in (grin). I’ll also have to spend some time with the kitten today. With the weather we’ve been having (extended rain and now ice cold) she hasn’t gotten to go outside much, and she is definitely a love-it-outside kind of a girl. She has that nice fur coat, but I’ve yet to find any gloves that will fit her, so I worry about her … 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, Friday, January 26

Hey Folks, Wow. It’s been an eventful week, and it isn’t over yet. Mona and I both caught the creeping crud hyper-flu that’s apparently going around in various parts of the US. I am a writer, so my first thought was Conspiracy. But I was too weak to even think about writing (or holding my head up) and besides, The Stand was already written. Got another copyediting job in late last week or early this week. (Thanks for the referral, Robert!) I’m publishing this today only to let you know things finally SEEM to be clearing around the Stanbrough camp, … Read more