• Challenge,  workshops

    Craft In the 21st Century…

    Kris Lecturing On Craft Every Monday… CRAFT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY… This class is taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, New York Times bestselling writer and the most award-winning author still writing in mystery and science fiction and fantasy. — Class starts Monday, February 17th and runs for 9 weeks. No assignments or homework, just pure 21st Century craft lessons from Kris every week. Every Monday, Kris will ta;k about a modern craft issue in this new world for three or four videos. Just a couple of examples of topics are: — Depth for People Who Scroll All the Time — Modern Problem of Unclear Antecedents.  — Using Real Places in…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    Back to the Future…

    The Next Kris and Dean Show… That’s right, Kris and I are going to take apart on video the 40-year-old-movie BACK TO THE FUTURE. We watched half of it tonight and will watch the other half tomorrow and then record the three hours of videos on Monday and Tuesday and it will come out the next day. Wow does this movie still stand up perfectly. We are going to be talking about plotting, information flow (a lot), pacing, characters, and so much more. And I hope in an entertaining way. The Kris and Dean Show Does Die Hard is also still up. So until this launches on Wednesday, you can…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    Kickstarter Special Stretch Goal!

    SPECIAL STRETCH GOAL… Reach 125 Backers by Monday late… If this campaign reaches 125 Backers by Monday Night Late, every backer of any reward at $20.00 and above will get two free electronic short stories by Dean Wesley Smith. You will get “Cat Leading the Way”and “The Story of Jean.” For writers, since Marble Grant is a well-developed and a fun character, you will also get the CLASSIC AUTHOR VOICE workshop worth $150 to learn how to create a character such as Marble Grant. You can take it at any time and at your own pace. So pass the word and help us reach 125 backers by Monday night. Also…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign

    Story Challenge and Storage Unit

    A Disruptive Day… Started off with Kris waking me up suddenly because the fire alarm people doing their regular checks of sprinklers and fire alarms were here. I am glad they do it, just wish early mornings would not be the case. Got a couple more hours of sleep before having to get up early for the cleaners to show up. So while the cleaners were here, I headed out to storage to look for author copies to bring to the office. Found a dozen boxes while only moving one massive stack. Also got a bunch of half titles from some old Venture magazines and also some 1960s Hitchcock Magazines.…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    Stories #4 and #5 for February…

    Somehow Managed to Do Them… So the challenge is still going. I have totally failed at trying to write during the day, but will get that changed as well shortly. Tomorrow, since we have cleaners swarming all over our place in the afternoon, I will be heading out to our storage unit for two reasons. I will be looking for more of our author’s copies (missing dozens and dozens of boxes of them… yes, the storage unit is that big…) and at some point I will dig into a bunch of boxes of digests and do more sheets of half titles. I have a good thousand or so half titles…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    Marble Grant Kickstarter Live!!

    SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS ONE!! Marble Grant is one of my favorite characters, so it feels great to have her stories take a step out into the world. Four books… three brand new collections. Plus we decided to do Marble Grant on mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and totes just for fun. And two really special workshops, one on writing ghosts and one on writing other paranormal creatures. Plus on this campaign you can jump into the full year of Publishing Mondays at half price. And more fun stuff. Here is the link to it. Marble Grant Kickstarter Take a look at the fun little video Kris did for Marble. (Might have…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign

    MARBLE GRANT KICKSTARTER…

    LAUNCHES AT NOON… I am so excited about this one. I love the covers and it takes the brand I have had on Marble Grant now for almost ten years and really makes it come alive. So much fun to have a character I have been writing and having fun with now finally get a chance to shine and for others to see why I love these stories so much. Marble Grant adventures started in a short story called “Blind Date” where she and her date were killed by a mugger. He went on to the next life while she hung around to become a ghost agent. Her partner and…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing,  workshops

    Story #2 February…

    Yes, Restarting Numbering Each Month… I know I got 31 stories done in January. Restarting keeps the number lower so I don’t think of eating the elephant too much. And gives me a monthly target for stories completed. Tonight’s story was a late starting story because I had a ton of other stuff to do, so I went for a character with a lot of voice that I am having fun with and that is my new character, Private Detective “No-Neck” Crunch. All the story titles start “A Woman Who…” And the last part of the title is a hint to where he will find the body of the woman…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  workshops

    Ate the Elephant For a Time…

    Had To Sit Down and Take Deep Breaths… You see, I have four big whiteboards on one wall of my office. They have the titles of the short stories that are in the first 50 issues of Smith’s Monthly. I stopped at Issue 50 because I ran out of room on the boards. There are 220 titles of stories written up there. 220 stories, covers an entire wall. I hope to do 365 stories this year. I happened to glance up at the wall of story titles and my mind went, “That is just 2/3rds of the number of stories you hope to write this year.” Wham!!!  I went from…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    January Challenge Stories

    Managed A Story Per Day For 31 Days… I have some adjustments to make, such as starting earlier in the day. But very happy with going from zero to full speed on fiction. 101,280 consumable words. That’s on pace for about 1.2 million words this year. Not up to my average yet, but close and a lot of things in January cut into that word count, so we shall see how it works in February and March. Working to get back above 1.3 million words. Here are the story titles for January… List of JANUARY Challenge Stories The Notes She Left Behind… Thunder Mountain A Lost Darkness… Marble Grant Death…