the writing life

The Journal, Wednesday, September 5

Hey Folks, Today you get to see evolution, Harvey Stanbrough style. You know how much I like playing with numbers, right? So yesterday afternoon, I opened each short story in The Storyteller and checked the word count. Yeah, I’m just that anal. In the short stories alone (there are 11, not 10 as I previously reported), there are 50,061 words. The novel itself is only 55,140 words, including the short stories. So you can see why I said the “novel” actually is only a framework to showcase the short stories. Anyway, as I wrote earlier, I probably won’t ever publish … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, September 4

Hey Folks, Ugh. I rolled out way late this morning at 4:30, so I’m still sluggish as I write this. For anyone out there who still thinks writing is “hard work” (and if you have or want a Facebook account), drop by and spend about 6 minutes watching two guys build a swimming pool with only what they found on-site. It’s wonderful and inspiring: https://www.facebook.com/TRNDVideos/videos/1572658269504526/?t=0. I will add that they couldn’t do that here. Our “dirt” is rock and clay and mesquite root, three of the more resistant substances known to man. Still, what they did was one hell of … Read more

The Journal, Monday, September 3

Hey Folks, Happy Labor Day. I wrote a whole long post yesterday, mostly whining about Heinlein’s Rule 4. Then I forgot to post it until about 5:30, and of course by then it was too late. Well, that’s why I call it an “almost daily” Journal. I counted yesterday’s nonfiction words (530) in my writing, but I won’t make you suffer through it. I consider myself an adherent to Heinlein’s Rules, yet lately I slip and fall when I approach Rule 4. In brief… 1, 2, and 3 — I write, I finish what I write, and I don’t rewrite. … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, September 1

Hey Folks, New day, new month. I got Nick Spalding 1 (I’m still not sure of the title) sent off to my first reader yesterday. Writing that one filled in a lot of previously unknown details about a secondary character who took a larger role than I expected. So now I have to go back through NS2 and tweak it here and there. Should be fun. This won’t be a rewrite. Mostly I’ll be cutting some of Nick’s private thoughts re that character. So there’s that. No writing today other than this little bit. A shopping trip to Sierra Vista … Read more

The Journal, Friday, August 31

Hey Folks, The end of August! Where in the world did the time go? And it’s 2018! Shouldn’t it still be around 1978 or so? (grin) Anyway, some very exciting news today, especially for those of you who design your own book covers. One of the best publishing suite companies is England’s Serif. Their products are intuitive, and they easily rival Adobe at a small fraction of the cost. Serif finally came out with the new Affinity Publisher (beta version) and is offering it free at https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/. I just downloaded my copy. Based on my long use of Serif products, … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, August 30

Hey Folks, After checking email and Facebook and a few reliable sources for “Of Interest,” I was about to move straight to the novel this morning. Then I had a thought and wrote a bunch of stuff below. But I got there eventually. I mentioned yesterday that I had a glimpse of the end of my WIP. So now I guess I’m anxious to get there. I guess that’s why I was eager to get straight to the story. Once I know the end, I want to finish the thing and get on with the next one. Finishing is possible, … 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, Tuesday, August 28

Hey Folks, A new, educational quote about writing, especially for any beginning writers and rewriters out there: “If you write one story [or novel], it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.” — Edgar Rice Burroughs *** Well, I wrote some today. But I had a thing, a clingy thing, in the back of my mind, bugging me. I was supposed to receive a UPS package (cigars) yesterday, but coincidentally, yesterday was the day our road (an alley, really) was closed as workers were putting in a new gas line and something … Read more

The Journal, Monday, August 27

Hey Folks, Well, one of my novels is in a new bundle from BundleRabbit: Cosmic Clashes. So that makes eight active bundles. (grin) You can see all of the bundles that contain my work at http://harveystanbrough.com/bundles/. *** Worked through the day yesterday and finished the copyedit. Looking very forward to getting back full-time to my own WIP today. *** My first reader is excellent. Chief (to me) among her finds were places where my character “secreted himself” instead of simply “hid.” (grin) In every case, those were places where I allowed the language to take precedence over the story. I … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, August 26

Hey Folks, As I expected, no fiction writing yesterday. If I write today, I’ll report it on Monday. I received feedback on my previous novel from my first reader yesterday, and this morning I applied that feedback and (I hope) enlisted her aid as the first reader for the one I’m working on now. (grin) Now I just have to come up with a couple of titles. One for Nick Spalding 2 (the one I finished) and another for Nick Spalding 1 (the WIP). In the meantime, here’s Part 2 of the topic I started yesterday. (You can see Part … Read more