Welcome to Part I of the Daily Journal of Harvey Stanbrough. This document contains the complete text of the raw journals from the beginning on October 19, 2014 through June 30, 2015 when I switched the Journal over to HarveyStanbrough.com. You may now download a PDF document containing the complete text of the raw journals from July 1, 2015 through December 15, 2015 at This Link. You can find newer Journal entries at HEStanbrough.com, the permanent home of the Journal. October 19, 2014[] Thanks for welcoming me into your writing life. Please remember Dean Wesley Smith’s website. While you’re there, check out the Think Like A Publisher and Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing tabs. I also recommend checking out his Online Workshops tab and his Lecture Series tab. See what he has to offer. Rolled out at 2 a.m. this morning after lying awake for a half-hour, still psyched over the first-ever Writing Into the Dark seminar yesterday. If you know of any writers who are serious about the craft and whom you believe would benefit from the intensive, please recommend they contact me. Only a few seats left. After a few comments on email and Facebook last night (the upshot was “I’d really love to attend WITD on Oct 25 BUT”) I decided October 25 (next Saturday) is probably going to be the last seminar. After that, I’ll just refer folks to the Audio Lecture on WITD. Around 2:15 I went to MailChimp, revived this RSS blog campaign, then decided to clean up this site a bit to get it ready. Then I started this blog post. It will go to a very small list tonight at 9 p.m. Probably I will discontinue this list after a week or two, so if you want to keep following this post, please subscribe through RSS (click the little sound wave icon in the sidebar). One note regarding subscriptions: Please do NOT share this blog far and wide. Share my “big” one over on HarveyStanbrough.com if you want to, but this one is only for professional writers who are serious about the craft and want to overcome all the BS myths we’ve been taught all our lives. I hope you’ll hang around and use this blog as fodder for your own motivation. Feel free to leave a comment re your own writing, how it’s going, and anything else you believe might be of interest to the others. In that regard, Ann Stratton emailed me last night to send the URL for Chuck Wendig’s blog. Might be a good one to watch. This one said, in slightly different language, what I told you guys yesterday. And it’s fun. I was remiss in my duties as Teacher yesterday. I meant to ask what you write, especially Carol, Lynn and Mary Ann. (I know Mary Ann writes novels, but I don’t know whether she also writes short fiction, for example.) So there’s yet one more bit of homework for you. Send me an email or leave a comment below and let me know what you write. And then set goals for yourself to help you practice writing into the dark. Another note on goal setting: Can we revise or adjust goals once they’re set? Yep. Remember, they’re only artificial limitations or artificial boundaries. We set goals to help ourselves, not to harm ourselves. Remember the term “realistically” and keep it in mind. For example, well, is a novel just a story that doesn’t end really soon? <shrug> I don’t know. I haven’t studied enough yet to know that. I’m taking a workshop beginning November 5 that will help me know that, so I might revise or adjust my first-novel goal a bit. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll learn enough before mid-November to still give myself that 45 days we talked about yesterday. Okay, one other question: Does all this talk of revising or adjust goals come from my critical mind? Absolutely. And it might make me adjust my goal but it won’t stop my writing At All. In my book, that’s a win. (grin) Only yesterday I taught a full day devoted to writing into the dark. In the recesses of my mind, that was a long, dark hallway with dark rooms on either side into which the writer might vary as necessary. This morning it feels like I’ve stepped away and am writing into the universe, sans even stars. Maybe writing into the BIG dark. It’s gonna be fun. Okay, I’m gonna grab a second mug of Kava, then to the writing ‘puter for a session. It’s 4:30. I’ll walk about 5:45, then be back to finish this blog and give you today’s totals a bit later. 7:45… Just back from my walk. Got 5.3 miles and (so far) only 196 words of fiction (on Going Back). I’m toast after teaching all day (grin)so seriously considering taking an intentional day off, watch football, chill, etc. However, the best (or worst) of intentions can be screwed up by “inspiration,” so I’ll close out this report later. Well, not too bad a day. I expected to get nothing done in writing today so I was already ahead with what I wrote on a longer story (Going Back). Watched some football, taking some intentional time off, but also wound up writing another 419 words on a new short story (Needful Things). It’s gonna be a good one, probably only around 3,000 words when it’s finished. I also got the new website (this one, http://HStanbrough.com) set up and adjusted, a new header put up, then wrote this blog post. So how did your writing day go? See you back here tomorrow. Fiction words: 615 (on two projects) Nonfiction words: 0 Blog: 856 words Total: 1471 new words October 20, 2014[] Rolled out at 2:30, email, coffee, read Dean’s blog, did some work on goal setting. I still have the ongoing goal of writing a new short story every week and to continue working on a few longer stories as well, one or more of which will be novellas if not novels. However, I’ve decided to hold off thinking (intentionally) about writing a particular novel until I’ve at least gotten well into a six-week seminar I’m beginning (as a student, not an instructor) on November 5. So the goal to publish my first novel on January 1 is postponed, probably. Thus far this morning (almost time to walk as I’m writing this first part of the blog) writing has been like pulling teeth for me. I think I’m concentrating (critical mind) too hard on wanting to write, if that makes any sense. I need to settle back, relax, and just let myself have fun telling a story. So for now, I’ll let go of concentrating. Instead I’ll focus (loosely) on not caring. Then we’ll see what happens the rest of today, tomorrow, etc. As of right now, having spent over an hour staring at my writing computer, I’ve managed to squeeze out only a handful of words, maybe 200. <sigh> Just realized I didn’t post my walk last night. Yesterday I walked my usual “maintenance” distance of 5.3 miles. Since I started measuring such things, as of yesterday I’d walked 5,470,534 steps for a total of 2574.37 miles. Cool, eh? Just imagine if that had all been in a straight line. (grin)My plantar fasciitis is flaring today, so today I “power limped” (thanks, Dan) only 2 miles. I’ll toss in totals for the day along with words at the end of this post. Okay, earlier I said the goal of writing a novel is postponed probably. I had to qualify the postponement with “probably” because literally anything can happen. As I mentioned last weekend, I’m still retraining myself as well. Today I remembered something that lifted a huge weight off my shoulders and I thought it might help you too. Remember “just write the next sentence”? Well, frankly, sometimes there IS no “next sentence,” at least for me. When that happens, I just go to another scene (doesn’t necessarily have to be chronological). This works as well for short stories as for longer ones, though it isn’t as necessary as often in shorter fiction. To begin the new scene, write the first thing that occurs to you, and THEN just write the next sentence, write the next sentence, write the next sentence. With any story, from a short story to a novel, it’s perfectly all right to Just Write the Scene. 1. To begin a scene, write whatever comes. 2. To get through the scene, write the next sentence, then write the next sentence, then write the next sentence. Don’t think about where it’s all going or even about the second or third sentence: Just write the next sentence. 3. When you’re writing a scene, don’t worry about how it connects to other scenes. Just focus on that scene. 4. When the scene ends, write whatever comes for the next scene (or for another scene), then write the next sentence, then write the next sentence, then write the next sentence. 5. Your character(s) will lead you to where you need to be.