In today’s Journal
* Thanks for the input
* Alison Naomi Holt
* Robert J. Sadler
* Yesterday
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Thanks to everyone who gave me input re my fairly recent announcement that I was considering writing nonfiction books on all my mentoring subtopics. I even thought about doing a Kickstarter for the series.
I appreciate the input, but I’ve decided against doing that, at least for now, and at least as a series. It would take too much time away from my fiction, and really, that’s where I live and breathe.
Besides, the mentorships, personalized to drill down into your own fiction, are still available and at a reduced price (see https://harveystanbrough.com/mentorships/).
Plus I’ve written on most (if not all) of those topics in my blog either at the Journal at HEStanbrough.com or over on my author site at HarveyStanbrough.com. And both of those have a search box in the sidebar.
If you like what I have to say about writing and how I say it, and if you aren’t ready yet to take advantage of a personal mentorship, I encourage you to use those search boxes to find more information.
My friend and writer Alison Naomi Holt has a new, very professional author website. If you want to see an excellent author site, check it out at https://alisonholtbooks.com. For a blast from the past, check out her blog too while you’re there.
My friend and writer Robert J. Sadler emailed to say he’ll be participating as a panelist in a Zoom talk on the True Crime genre. If you’re interested, check out his announcement at https://www.robertjsadler.com/post/a-true-crime-discussion-on-zoom.
Yesterday I started writing the first book of the Wes Crowley Gap series. The title of Book 1 will be Assignment: Brownsville. With any luck, it’ll be ready for my first readers in a couple of weeks.
But it almost didn’t happen. In about the third paragraph, I had Ranger Crowley going on assignment with a Ranger whom I thought for a moment hadn’t joined the company until about 15 years later. If that was true, I’d have to go back into Book 3 again, make a change, upload the new-new version, etc. Initially, I thought Well, at least I caught it early rather than late.
I took a break, confused and disgusted.
But when I got back, I remembered the character in question WAS in the right timeline. Whew! Crisis averted.
But the incident caused me to realize I need to do some serious internal research. So I set aside Assignment: Brownsville for a little while and went back to scanning through the whole original series to at least delineate which characters served during which timeframes so I wouldn’t confuse them again.
All of which adds up to a cautionary tale: MAN, I wish I’d kept a reverse outline for those books as I wrote them!
Learn from my mistake, folks. You never know what individual novel you write might take off and become a series. Keep a reverse outline on every novella and novel that you write. If you don’t, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll regret it.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Colin Pitchfork Murders – The Birth of DNA Forensic Evidence” at http://dyingwords.net/colin-pitchfork-murders-the-birth-of-dna-forensic-evidence/.
See “Find Your Readers with SparkToro” at https://youtu.be/OtoKrGAf75w (free video).
See “A True Crime Discussion on Zoom” at https://www.robertjsadler.com/post/a-true-crime-discussion-on-zoom.
See “Ten Years In” at https://russellblake.com/ten-years-in/. A fortunate writer.
See “THE LAST SALE” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/the-last-sale/.
See “Avoid the Bait-and-Switch Opening” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/06/avoid-the-bait-and-switch-opening.html. A couple of pieces of good advice.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 580 words
Writing of WCGN: Assignment: Brownsville (novel)
Day 1…… 2890 words. Total words to date…… 2890
Total fiction words for June……… 12473
Total fiction words for the year………… 466962
Total nonfiction words for June… 3340
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 109570
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 576532
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 9
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 62
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.