The Journal: Patronage and Mentorships

In today’s Journal

* Patronage
* Mentorships(?)
* Of Interest

Patronage

It’s been a very long time since any of my patrons have requested anything from me.

I’m only one guy, and I don’t have a fulfillment team. So if you’re a patron and you’d like to claim a reward, please email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com to let me know what you’d like to have. I’m more than happy to send it right out.

Since I haven’t been writing much for the past year, obviously there’s been nothing new to send out, but all of the patronage tiers now include items from my backlist. Check it out at https://hestanbrough.com/become-a-patron/.

Mentorships(?)

In the past, I offered several highly structured mentorships that built on each other and complemented each other. They were a great value, but very few took advantage of them, so eventually I took them down.

Now, thanks to Dean’s post today (see “Of Interest”), I’m thinking about offering a limited number of mentorships again. If I do, they will be very different, both from what I offered before and from what Dean’s offering now:

▪Each mentorship would focus on one writer and his or her work, whether short stories, a novel, or a series. We would conduct the mentorship via email so both I and the writer would have a record of the exchanges.

▪Instead of a requiring an overall fee, I would ask the student to pay $25, month by month, either to my PayPal account or via personal check to my PO box. The mentorship would begin or continue on the first day of the month.

▪ The mentorship might last as briefly as one month or as long as several. The writer or I could choose to discontinue the mentorship at any time.

▪ From the first payment, the writer would be entitled to

▪ (provided one time only) a list of the topics and subtopics from my previous mentorships as a possible catalyst for questions, plus

▪(every month) everything in the Patron Writer tier of patronage (the writer has to let me know what s/he wants), plus

▪(every month) answers to whatever questions the writer wants to ask, whether about craft topics in general or about a specific part of the writer’s work in progress. (Note: If I feel the writer is unreasonably abusing this feature, I reserve the right to limit the number of questions.)

▪Finally, as part of my responses to the writer’s questions, I would include PDF handouts and/or fiction or nonfiction ebooks if I thought they were illustrative of my response.

Okay, I think that’s it. So what do you think? Interested at all? Any suggestions? If so, please email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. No obligation of course. And thanks in advance for any input, positive or negative, or suggestions.

If I decide to offer the mentorships, I’ll announce them here and on the Patronage page.

Talk with you again later.

Of Interest

See “This bizarre DNA event recording system can track cellular activity from birth to death” at https://interestingengineering.com/science/dna-event-recording-system-cellular-activity. SF story ideas?

See “Mentor Openings (Not Part of Sale)” at https://deanwesleysmith.com/mentor-openings-not-part-of-sale/.

See “Story Idea, Soul, or Personality of the Writer – What Makes a Book Successful?” at https://killzoneblog.com/2022/07/story-idea-soul-or-personality-of-the-writer-what-makes-a-book-successful.html. I didn’t read this. Just thought some of you might get something out of it.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 540 words

Writing of Blackwell Ops 8 (tentative title, novel)

Day 19… 2117 words. Total words to date…… 41729
Day 20… 2025 words. Total words to date…… 43754
Day 21… 1770 words. Total words to date…… 45524

Total fiction words for July……… 3795
Total fiction words for the year………… 49200
Total nonfiction words for July… 11330
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 105460
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 154660

Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. I’ve never said WITD is “the only way” to write, nor will I ever. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among other topics.