7th Story and Kickstarter Success…

NEW WRITERS HAVE NO HISTORY…

And I honestly would not expect a new fiction writer coming into publishing for the first time to have any perspective on what happened, often before they were born.

So I am trying to imagine what a new writer faces today in 2025.

A dumping ground on social media of really bad opinions and information that just makes it all seem impossible.

And with their craft, they carry a ton of destructive baggage from teachers. Rewriting, polishing, beta readers, workshops, you name it. A hundred ways to destroy anything original in a new writer.

Then the publishing world itself looks totally overwhelming. Publish your own books, do your own covers, layout your own interiors, find art that is safe from AI, and then where do they put it, why won’t it sell???  Kickstarters, promotion, Shopify stores.  A swirl of impossible. After all, the myth is that you write a novel and get rich. Right?

Right???

And the cesspool of New York publishing looks inviting, like candy coaxing a kid into a car with a stranger. And if the new writer decides to go that way, years and years and all their dreams are lost. And that is if they are lucky enough to find a publisher and an agent that doesn’t scam them much. Most new writers going that way spend years with their one book getting rejected by agents.

And sadly there are still some writer gatherings that invite the cesspool in to trap writers who flat don’t know any better. Shame on those conferences. Put it this way, if the conference brings in an agent, they do not care about their writers.

So at times here I will stop and try to imagine myself in the shoes of a new writer. There is a lot of good information out there, but wow, like anything in this modern world, it is often buried by so much bad information, it is hard to dig out.

Here and in the workshops we teach, Kris and I will remain truthful and often just blunt.

And we always will answer questions.

But for you new writers out there, or if you have a new writer friend, when they are struggling to learn and find information, there is a great filter that help.

Look at the source.

Really is that simple. If it is an unpublished person with an opinion, or someone not even in publishing trying to sell you something, RUN!!

Look for your information from long-term successful fiction writers. There are thousands of us and if you listen to us or Bradbury or Ellison or Block or Heinlein from previous years, you will be able to start sorting out the crap from the information that will help you.

KICKSTARTER DOING GREAT!!

Funded in just under two hours and hit the first stretch goal in under 12 hours. Yay!!

And Kris and I love these Collide books. Wow, is that a lot of short fiction, but after 50 years of writing, trust me, five years of the Collide books at 100 per year does not even cover it.

And a couple of really great special workshops about aspects of writing series.

SERIES COLLIDE MAKE 100 KICKSTARTER PROJECT…

WRITING CHALLENGE

Seven days into my short story per day and I have hit seven stories.

I am very proud of that for a number of reasons. First off, I started up from a dead stop on January 1st. I was a little worried about that, but turned out fine.

Then I knew that Sunday, Monday, and today were going to be brutal with business and workshops and Kickstarter stuff. All the kinds of things that would normally distract me from writing.

But I wrote a story per day through all that, making some adjustments to write less complex series like Bryant Street for a few days. And tonight a Marble Grant that has so much voice, they sort of write themselves no matter how tired I am.

So today got up after three hours sleep and was putting up all the Add-Ons on Kickstarter. I don’t like to do them until they are proofed. We launched at noon and I kept working until lunch that Kris went and got around 2 pm,

Then back up here to work until 3 pm when Kris said, “Go Nap!”

I got another three hours sleep and yes, I am tired but doing better.

Worked through the evening on workshops, watched an hour of television with Kris, then back finishing up workshops until 1:30 am when totally tired I realized I had not started a story. Yikes.

Back to my writing computer I scampered (and if you believe that…), found a title I liked on my half-title sheets and typed in “Die at Midnight” and put Marble Grant under it and off I went in Marble’s wonderful voice.

So about 1,500 word story again, but finished.

7 stories in 7 days…

Now lets see how life gives me a little more time in the next few days. Or not!

But the hard 7 days are done. Now to do 7 more to help set the habit.

I will do a total word count for the 7 days tomorrow. Not a clue and brain too tired to try tonight.