The Fiction Writer Is an Action Correspondent

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * The Fiction Writer Is an Action Correspondent * Of Interest Quote of the Day “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” John Bingham, running speaker and writer The Fiction Writer Is an Action Correspondent I define an “excellent question” as one that forces me to think about and explain a concept in a different way, a way that might get through to more students. I received such a question yesterday from my longtime writer friend and dedicated Texan Gary V. As is … Read more

A Good Question, and Punctuation

In today’s Journal * A Good Question * Punctuation * Of Interest A Good Question In a comment on “An Email, and You Who Disagree,” Chynna P wrote “[D]oes this mean you’ll stop writing the Journal soon?” I doubt many read the comments, so I thought I’d respond in today’s edition of the Journal. (I hadn’t planned to post an edition today at all.) First, thanks to Chynna for the question. She read the post correctly, but the answer is, I honestly don’t know. I’m not getting any younger, and I’d really rather fashion an intentional end to my contribution … Read more

An Email, and You Who Disagree

In today’s Journal * An Email * You Who Disagree, I Understand * Of Interest An Email I recently received an email from an instructor at the Star Fall Arts Center thanking me for one category of my writer resources at harveystanbrough.com. Then she asked me to list another resource there. She provided the link and said it “covers everything from inspiration and outlining all the way to editing and proofreading.” It was one of those unbelievably comic moments during which, had it happened face to face, I might have put my palm on her forehead and said, “Um, have … Read more

Goals and Goal Setting

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Goals and Goal Setting * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today — but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.” Isaac Asimov “As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.” Ray Bradbury Goals and Goal Setting … Read more

Series

In today’s Journal * Series * Of Interest Series For awhile now, I’ve been casting about looking for a Jack Reacher type character, by which I mean one who would carry a series that was both interesting for readers and fun to write. To that end, I’ve gone through several series: Joseph “Joey Bones” Salerno, a Brooklyn mob-guy anti-hero, stood up and carried several short stories and a novella. But I had neither the chops nor the permission to write a Joey Bones series. Then along came Nick Spalding in the exploratory Hemingway-esque novella Jobs Like That. Spalding was fun, … Read more

The Journal: A Frenzy of Fuzzy Disequilibrium?

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Topic: A Frenzy of Fuzzy Disequilibrium? * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke Topic: A Frenzy of Fuzzy Disequilibrium? Over at the Kill Zone blog today, James Scott Bell offers “How to Form Your Bestseller in 10 Days” and offers a system for doing so. The keyword there is “form.” For those who are satisfied with the labor involved in that, it’s fine. Jim posits that “the word system immediately sets the various hairs on the back of an ‘intuitive’ … Read more

The Journal: I Teach So I May Learn

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Topic: I Teach So I May Learn * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “The upheavals [of artificial intelligence] can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease.” Nick Bilton “Observers typically attribute Hoover’s success to BookTok, the segment of TikTok dedicated to authors and readers.” from “The Unlikely Author Who’s Absolutely Dominating the Bestseller List” (Slate) (See “Of Interest” for … Read more

The Journal: How to Get Here, Part 1

In today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Topic: How to Get Here, Part 1 * Of Interest Quote of the Day “[T]he absolute best promotion for your books, proven through history and thousands of surveys and studies, is your next book.” Dean Wesley Smith Topic: How to Get Here, Part 1 If you want to be a professional fiction writer, there are two ways to go about it. To my mind, they are the hard way — following the myths and turning what should be fun into labor — and the easy, fun way: Writing Into the Dark, … Read more

The Journal: Why Most Fiction Writers Will Never Get Here

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Topic: Why Most Fiction Writers Will Never Get Here * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” Mark Twain “But they are amazingly hard to follow—which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants, and which is why I’m not afraid to give away the racket!” Robert A. Heinlein on his “Business Habits” “What [Heinlein’s Rules] did for me was to finally get me out of the stupid teaching from school and allow me to … Read more

The Journal: Pure Writing Into the Dark

In today’s Journal * Welcome * I’m Back! * Topic: Pure Writing Into the Dark First, welcome to r2zajac and any other recent new subscribers. You picked a good time to drop in. (grin) I’m Back! I’m not bragging here folks. I’m celebrating. I just felt like sharing this good news with my friends. Starting Blackwell Ops 8, my current novel, has been nothing short of restarting my life as a fiction writer after a very long 10 months. I’ve written five or six different openings for this novel, and I struggled with all of them. It was like pulling … Read more