Category: writing life

No comments

An Interview with Harvey Stanbrough – Short Flights Bundle Author

  By bundles, interviews, musings, writer development, writing life

I’ve asked some of the authors included in the Short Flights (of the Imagination) Bundle to drop by and answer a few questions. I enjoy hearing about how other writers work and think, don’t you? I sent along twenty-odd questions to each writer and asked them to answer a handful they liked.

So first up is multi-genre author Harvey Stanbrough, who keeps a website at harveystanbrough.com. Harvey is no stranger to bundling, and his collection, S, F & H is part of Short Flights…but here, I’ll let him tell you about it…

SDR: Tell us a little about the story you have in the Short Flights bundle.

HS: It’s actually a 10-story collection. This collection of ten short stories spans science fiction and science fantasy with a dash of horror tossed in for good luck. Firefighters are trapped in a burning house, an alien crashes a teen party, and other aliens visit a café in a small town. There’s a robot on a robot horse, a game show called Suicide Watch, and a viral outbreak that wipes out much of humanity. Four other stories round out the ten with more aliens, humor and horror.

SDR: So you’ve got lots of characters to choose from for this next question. Imagine you’ve been kidnapped or trapped by a natural disaster. Which of your own characters (from any work) would you want to rescue you? Why?

HS: Wes Crowley (from my 10-novel Wes Crowley series) because he’s honest, hard, and relentless.

SDR: Describe your current writing workspace(s).

HS: Actually, I write on a dedicated writing computer (no Internet) in The Adobe Hovel, a shed about 200 feet from my house.

SDR: What are you currently working on out in your shed? How do you feel about it right this minute?

HS: A new novel in a pulp-noir detective series. Stern Talbot, P.I.—The Early Years: The Case of the Slashed-Up Secretary. I feel good about it. It’s rolling right along. I usually get around 3000 to 4000 words done on it per day.

SDR: Why do you write short fiction? Love, necessity, marketability, or something else?

HS: I like the challenge of the short form. I have over 180 short stories in around 25 collections. But I enjoy writing novels more.

SDR: What’s the most perfect short story you’ve ever read?

HS: “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury.

SDR: I agree, that’s a fabulous story. Do you belong to any writer’s groups or communities? Do you think these types of social interactions are important for writers?

HS: No, because most of them are more social groups than working groups. The members tend to talk a lot about writing, but they do very little actual writing.

SDR: You’ve published a lot of titles. Have you had to deal with bad reviews? How do you manage them?

HS: I don’t pay attention to reviews, good or bad. What some like, some don’t. No worries.

SDR: Are you a planner/outliner/architect or a pantser/gardener/discovery writer?

HS: This is very important. I’m just a writer. Like the guy who paints houses is a painter, or the person who works on car engines is a mechanic. That’s all. I adhere firmly to Heinlein’s Rules and I trust my characters to tell the story. After all, they’re the ones who are actually living it. I’m just kind of the recorder.

SDR: I try to follow Heinlein’s Rules myself, although I have the most trouble with #2 (finishing things!).

Do you prefer music, silence, or some other noise in the background when you write? If music, what kind?

HS: I’m down in the story, running through it with the characters, trying to write everything they say and do. That’s much more entertaining for me than any other thing.

SDR: Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Harvey!

The Short Flights bundle from BundleRabbit is available now across many online platforms. Along with Harvey’s collection, you’ll find ten more single stories and four more collections in the bundle, enough short fiction to keep you reading for a while! At just $4.99, it’s a real steal, so don’t miss it.

We’ll have another author interview soon, so stay tuned!

2 Comments

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a…Brand?

  By musings, publishing, self-publishing, writer development, writing life

So. I’m taking a publishing and marketing course this month, and a recent lesson was about building a brand. I haven’t given branding a whole lot of attention in the past, preferring to think of myself as my “brand” and that it’s fairly evident what that means if you read my work or follow me here or on social media. However, some advice in the course was to consider how “branding” can help convey information about one’s work in a quick and concise way, which can be useful to potential readers. Discussion included logos and slogans or tag lines as part of a brand, among other things.

I was a little surprised to discover that many participants in the course already had logos and tag lines in place.

Hmm. That seemed to put me behind the curve. But I felt a little stumped. I write science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk…I could go on, but you get the idea. I write a broad range of stories under the speculative fiction umbrella. Encapsulating that seemed a daunting task. Thinking thematically didn’t help me out much, either; I don’t know if there are particular themes that run through all or most of my work. So this was me most of the weekend:

via GIPHY

But…I think I did it. I’m going to take a day or two to let it cool and do some tweaking, and then I’ll share it here.

One Comment

Friday Desk Report – February 2, 2018

  By books, bundles, current projects, deals, ebooks, Friday Desk Report, personal, projects, stats, writing life

I was going to start this post with a pithy quotation about selling books, but all the ones I read were starting to make me depressed, so I changed my mind. Yes, this week I’ve been largely focusing on marketing, promotion, and how to help readers find my books (and want to read them). While I did make many pretty pictures, and learned many new things, I also came to realize that I need to get all of this stuff organized on my computer, in one easily-accessible place. Everything probably took me twice as long as it should have as I searched for cover images, blurbs, links…it’s definitely time for some computer housecleaning. *gulp*

On a brighter note, I worked on the next Nearspace novel (started in November, currently in the process of getting it back on track), and some editing on another, older project. Wrote some new words on the current Olympia Investigations story I have underway, but the brain was not really in a word-writing place this week. Considering the time of year it is, I’m in a remarkably good head space (much of which I attribute to my new daily yoga practice), but it’s still best to work with what my brain tells me it can handle. I think next week the words will be inclined to flow better, since I took a bit of a break this week.

I’ve also switched up the newsletter signup freebie, which has been the same for a while. As of today it’s a newly-compiled and packaged collection of five of my short stories, all about alien encounters. They’re a nice mix of serious, funny, heartwarming and thought-provoking. If you haven’t signed up before, or haven’t read these stories, [intlink id=”2779″ type=”page”]click over and take a look![/intlink] The cover image is a beauty by by Joel Filipe on Unsplash, where you can find some really amazing images the artists have made freely available for whatever use you wish. Thanks, Joel and Unsplash!

January Stats!

Okay, so I didn’t really get back at the treadmill desk until almost the middle of the month, but even then, I was a little spotty on it. 419 minutes for the month, which translated to 5.14 miles walked. I can do better!

Word metrics for the month worked out to 5633 written, and 12,509 revised. I’d like to keep up this revision pace for February, but really up the writing. Guess we’ll see how it goes.

Finally, both my Olympia Investigations stories are in bundles right now! The Immortals bundle and Weird Fantastic Detective Stories are both available at BundleRabbit, so hop over and take a look if you love getting great reads for reasonable prices. And really, who doesn’t love that?

 

2 Comments

Friday Desk Report – January 26, 2018

  By Beyond the Sentinel Stars, books, Friday Desk Report, Nearspace, publishing, writing life

Whew! It’s not hard to tell it’s the beginning of the year. I got some writing done, worked on promotional stuff, made a new short story available on a bundling site, set up a new bundle I’d like to curate, and poked around on Patreon for a while.

I’ve been thinking about Patreon for some time now…is it something that could work for me as a writer? I’m leaning toward giving it a try, but no firm decisions yet. I’ll keep you posted here on any developments. I do have some fun things I could do on the platform, I think.

The big news this week is that my copies of Beyond the Sentinel Stars arrived! I think it wasn’t really real until I held a copy in my hands. Which also meant I was able to take this picture…full trilogy!

This has also been my second week of doing a yoga practice every day and–wow! I am really feeling the effects (in a very good way). Of course I’m still at my treadmill desk, too, but the yoga is bringing something entirely new and welcome to my physical state. I discovered this wonderful channel on YouTube–Yoga with Adriene–and if you’re thinking you might like to try it, I can’t recommend her strongly enough. No pressure, no stress, no demands to do things perfectly or quickly. Adriene’s laid-back and restful style of instruction is exactly what I needed. Check out her beginners’ videos if you’re curious. Every day I can’t wait to get to the mat for my practice.

Just for fun, this year I’m tracking what I research for various stories. Things I looked up on the Internetz this week for writing: old general store images, row houses, and words in the Mi’kmaq language.

 

No comments

2017 in Review: Words

  By projects, writing life, writing log

Well, this is what it all comes down to for a writer, isn’t it? How much did you write?

In January of last year, I began using Jamie Raintree’s Writing and Revision Tracker, which is a wonderful tool–as long as you remember to use it. Which is where I usually fail, when it comes to any number of time management/organization/tracking tools. So in order to write this post, I had to do some backtracking, some figuring, some fill-in-the blanks…and I’m still not sure what I might be missing. However, the final numbers seem reasonable to me.

Writing: 108, 883 words

Revision: 80,692

The writing count doesn’t include blog posts, presentations, articles, newsletters–basically nothing in the non-fiction realm. This is just short stories and novels. I’m reasonably pleased with this number. The revision number reflects the fact that there are different ways to track revision–words or pages covered, time spent, etc.–and mine is actually a combination of word and time goals. So, kind of meaningless as a total with no context, I guess. Maybe it’s more useful to know that all of my revision goals ended between 80-107% complete.

So, using these numbers as a base, I’ve set some goals in my new tracker for 2018. Will I reveal them in detail? Will I merely hint and leave you in suspense?

I guess that’s for the next post…

One Comment

Friday Desk Report – 1/12/2018

  By Friday Desk Report, writer development, writing life

So, this has been my first week back at my desk since the holidays ended. I intended to get back here sooner, but this year I found I needed a break AFTER the break, to recover some mental energy. The first couple of days in my office, I spent re-setting and organizing, as usual. My yearly process usually looks something like this:

*beginning of the year: set writing and publishing goals, make spreadsheets, update all organization and time-management tools. Make A Plan.

*early months/spring: stay pretty much on track, adjusting goals as things change and keeping just busy/committed enough to avoid falling into Seasonal Affective Disorder.

*mid-year/summer: completely fall off the wagon when warm weather arrives. Work on whatever has a deadline over the summer.

*fall: frantically try to gather dropped projects. Do NaNoWriMo. Accept that goals are in total disarray.

*beginning of the year: repeat

So right now we’re at a high point for organization and productivity. I have a new schedule which actually blocks out dedicated writing time every weekday, and schedules social media/marketing and business segments, too. I’ve stayed generally within the parameters for three days now. (!) I’m walking at my treadmill desk. I’ve sent out some submissions. Things seem to be working relatively well, although I’ve already thought of a couple of things I didn’t work into the schedule. Might need a little tweaking yet.

I do like this deep-breath, regroup, get organized time of the year, though. I just wish it lasted longer.

 

2 Comments

2017 in Review: Publications!

  By Beyond the Sentinel Stars, books, Nearspace, Olympia Investigations, projects, publishing, self-publishing, Third Person Press, writing life

So, this post will be a little more upbeat than yesterday’s treadmill desk lament. I published things in 2017! And strangely, I realize, they mostly come in twos.

Two short stories in anthologies: I had stories in Where Evil Dwells: The Nova Scotia Anthology of Horror (“The Girl in the Stones”), and the 2017 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide (“Station Run”). Two very different anthologies and very different stories! “The Girl in the Stones” is set in Cape Breton, when a couple moves into a house that comes with a strange pile of stones in the yard, menacing dreams, and a frightening history. “Station Run” finds a young girl on a space station discovering that her programming skills have unearthed a secret that will rock the world of the station and those who live there.

Two self-published novelettes, “Waiting to Fly” (set in the Nearspace universe), and “The Goddess Problem” (an Olympia Investigations story). “Waiting to Fly” is set in the early days of Nearspace colonization, when getting to a space station was only the first step, and getting off it again might not be easy-especially if you’re a young woman on your own. “The Goddess Problem” finds our favourite supernaturally-attuned detective, Acacia Sheridan, employed by a Greek goddess on a missing-persons case.

Two books: a new collection of short stories, The Cache and Other Stories, and the third book in the Nearspace series, Beyond the Sentinel Stars. The story collection includes stories published since my last collection in 2011, as well as a couple of bonus stories you won’t find anywhere else. And Beyond the Sentinel Stars finds Luta and her brother Lanar embroiled in a desperate attempt to prevent another Chron war from ravaging Nearspace.

On the editorial side, 2017 saw the publication by Third Person Press of Rise of the Mudmen by James FW Thompson. I’m very pleased to have been involved in the publication of this first novel. The story follows a group of young survivors through a zombie apocalypse in an alternate 1980’s timeline in Cape Breton.

2 Comments

2017 in Review: Treadmill Desk Stats

  By treadmill desk, writing life

I’m going to be looking at 2017 from a few different perspectives, as I get organized and going in 2018. I thought I’d share some of that process here, starting with my walking-while-working stats for the year. Because yes, I do use a spreadsheet to keep track of such things. #nerd

My treadmill desk use always fluctuates over the course of the year: I use it most in the fall and winter and less in the spring and summer, which makes sense because honestly, I just don’t tend to use it if my office is very warm. In fact, during the summer months I often write outside, so the treadmill option is right out. I get my walking in outdoors, so I stay active, but I can’t multi-task with writing as well. My goal this coming year is to extend the season of use for the treadmill a bit, because it really does help keep my back troubles in check and is just all-around better for me than sitting for extended periods. (I’m walking as I write this, as a matter of fact.)

For 2017, the numbers are…pretty grim. I spent 3,742 minutes walking while I worked, or about 62 and a half hours. That’s only a little over an hour a week on average, which is just abysmal. It equates to almost 51 miles of walking–less than a mile a week! Oh, my. I just glanced at my 2016 stats, which show 8,395 minutes of treadmill walking! Wow, what a slip.

Well. I know what I have to do from here on out. Make sure I get at least one walking session every work day (excluding July and August, because I know that just won’t happen). I guess that’s focus item #1 for 2018. More to come…

One Comment

Friday Desk Report – June 16, 2017

  By current projects, Friday Desk Report, gardening, writer development, writing life

A lovely carpet of creeping phlox

Seems like it was a bit of a slow week around the desk, but of course the intrusion of the warming weather and demands of the outdoors have something to do with that. (Not that I am complaining!) Still, I managed to keep up with most things, started a new novel revision, and spent hours refining the magic system used in that novel draft. It now makes more sense and is on its way to becoming a rational magic system. Still a few things to work out, but it definitely has a good foundation now. It was a pain in the butt interesting to try to reconcile the magic use/character abilities that I’d written into the story into a more coherent framework. I’ll have to make changes and adjustments as I work my way through this revision, but I feel much more confident about a good result now.

In my research into building good magic systems, I also refreshed my memory on Brandon Sanderson’s Three Laws of magic systems, which are very helpful to keep in mind when building one. The first one is at the link, and the others are linked from the bottom of that page.

A gorgeous tall tulip from a “Pretty in Pink” bulb mix from Vesey’s Seeds

I started the week bouncing between projects and finally landed on that revision, but I foresee that pattern continuing over the next little while. There are short stories I want to submit by upcoming deadlines, so although I’m a bit stuck on them right now, I have to keep going back and pecking at them until they agree to cooperate. I love it when I can sit down and write a new story straight through, but alas, that doesn’t happen all that often. It’s more likely to take a lot of digging and mucking about before I reach those two sweet, sweet words: The End.

Family, fire, and cake

Last week was my birthday (which I share with my sister, but no, we’re not twins–she was born five years after me, but on the same date) so we had our traditional outdoor party on the weekend. I made a first attempt at icing flowers made with a Russian ball decorating tip; they turned out all right, but I learned some tricks for making them better the next time. Still delicious!

Still working with my assistant, so despite the yard and garden needs, I think I’ll be able to stay productive in the coming weeks.

 

One Comment

Friday Desk Report June 9, 2017

  By Friday Desk Report, gardening, Olympia Investigations, writing life

This month I have the great pleasure of having an author assistant helping me out with all sorts of things. It’s a short-term contract, but I’m loving the ability to hand off some tasks to someone else for a change. So far she’s taken care of some social media tasks, proofread a manuscript, created promotional materials, researched blog post ideas and found a cover image I’ll need soon. All this has freed me up to concentrate on writing and some other things, which has been great. It’s not something I could afford to pay for full time, but for short-term bursts of super-productivity, it’s fabulous.

Today has probably been the least productive day of the week, but mainly because several ROML (Rest of My Life) things took me out of the house numerous times. I was even productive yesterday, on my birthday! When, I’m sure you’ll agree, most of us deserve to take the day off if we’re able.

This week’s main projects were the newest [intlink id=”3449″ type=”page”]Olympia Investigations[/intlink] story, and another story I’m hoping to have ready for a particular anthology call. They’re both fun to write, although very different tales. I’ve been switching back and forth as the mood takes me; I may try to work on a more deliberate schedule next week. I also have some rewrites coming up soon, so I’d like to clear these stories off the decks before then. My goal for this month is 13k words for those two stories combined; I’m slightly behind so far, but there’s still time to catch up!

Before I forget, I have a Kindle Countdown deal running on The Two-Week Short Story from now until June 15th. If you or someone you know might be interested, click over and check it out!

Spring has finally arrived and my gardens are starting to fill with colour–and weeds! So I’ll have to find time to work on that, too. I might need an assistant for longer than I anticipated…