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Dithering About Next Year
Ahhh, the Fun!! Starting early to plan on a challenge for 2023 allows a lot of time to dither. And I dither a great deal. I thought I had a fun challenge for 2023 yesterday, but the reaction from those I told and my thinking about why I even wanted to do it sort of took that plan from “I’m willing to work like a fool.” to “Might not be worth it.” Those are things I had trouble with last year’s challenge of a story per day. I knew I could do the work, but ran smack into “Not worth it.” So I have now backed off to the goal…
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Thinking About Next Year
December 1st… Time for any fiction writer to start taking stock in how the year of writing went, and planning for the following year. I will talk later about 2022, but tonight I spent a lot of time really going over a challenge for 2023 and see what the benefits would be and the downsides. And more than anything, how the entire idea and challenge fits for me and my eyesight at the moment. It is supposed to be better, and it is improving slightly, but how much and by when is a moving target at the moment. That makes planning for the year a slight challenge, more than normal.…
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Time Travel Story Bundle
Now Live… At www.storybundle.com/timetravel Here is the introduction blog I did for the bundle. This is a stunning group of writers and a lot of time travel stories. You don’t want to miss this one. Plus I have a Thunder Mountain novel in this one, Kris has a Diving novel, and we put in one of the big collections of 20 stories we did a few years back. TIME TRAVEL FUN… Time travel fits in any genre and almost every type of story. Everyone seems to have their favorite kind of time travel. I know I sure do, and all the writers in this great bundle do as well. As…
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I HAVE A STORY UP!!
A Cold Poker Gang Story!! That’s right, one of my stories that Kris wanted for the WMG Holiday Spectacular 2022 went out today!! It’s a Cold Poker Gang story and you can still get it just fine by going to www.wmgpublishinginc.com and signing up for the Holiday Calendar of a story per day. You will get the ones already sent out (such as my first one) and then get a story per day from there. Now would be a great time to get on board if you have missed it up to now. Read a holiday story every day. And for those of you who have read my story, wouldn’t this…
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A Writing and Health Tip…
Drink a Beverage of Choice… As some of you know, and that I talked about a week or so ago because I am slow reading stories sent to me, I somehow got Optic Nuritis in my only good eye. Pretty much blind for a few days, most spent in doctors and emergency rooms. Since then I have very limited vision which they say should get better over the next month to six months. (No idea what caused it, no cure, and no I do not have MS. I am typing this with the letters blown up way, way large.) So as I learn to live with this, I am needing…
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Amazing Power
Why Streaks and Challenges? I get asked that question a lot. Why do I pay so much attention to streaks and challenges?? I once again proved to myself tonight with this blog why. Let me lightly paint the picture. 3 am. The air outside the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of our bedroom was a cold-for-Vegas 43 degrees. Lights and computers were off in my office and I had watched all of thirty minutes of television downstairs before nodding off. I was shivering and just about to climb into bed to pull up the two blankets and two quilts to my chin when Kris rolled over and muttered the question she asks…
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Raise a Drink for Greg
At The Same Time All Over the World… Those of us who knew Greg Bear, or had met him, or admired his work, raised a drink in toast to him. Astrid Bear, his wonderful wife, came up with the idea and I thought it was perfect. As Kris and I tend to do when we lose a friend like Greg, or Mike or Gardner, or Eric or Dave or… or… or… we talk about the last time we were with them. Our favorite moments with them, favorite meals out of hundreds and hundreds. We remembered that time at breakfast or that time in the convention suite. That time in a…
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Coming Out of a Fog
Finally Coming Back… Been dealing with this eye injury for about a month now, then got a horrid cold, worst one I have had in years, actually, that made my eyes blurry on top of the injury. So a fun couple of days being mostly blind and sneezing. Joy. But as the cold slowly clears, I feel like I am coming out of a fog bank and seeing the sun again. And clearly, under the cold-caused crap, my eyes are slowly improving. Yay! A couple more days and I will only be dealing with the eye issues again. So sitting here at this computer tonight, with the screens blown up…
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Against All Odds
I Got #50 Done… I asked Kris to be my back-up. I can’t see all the numbers on the face of the oven, for example, and she helped with that. She was there when I was doing anything with something hot, letting me do it but standing by. She went with me to get potatoes that I had forgotten to buy to help me find them in the store. For those of you who have been reading my last couple posts, #50 is the 50th year I have cooked myself the exact same meal on Thanksgiving. And also, I have a nasty cold that Kris caught at 20Books, which is…
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Thanksgiving Holidays
We All Have Our Stories and Traditions… I had no tradition for this holiday growing up. None. My family was so unpleasant at its very core, a holiday forcing all of them into one place was my definition of a nightmare. So after five years of being out on my own, my father and his new wife (worse than my mother, which I must say took some doing) were in Palm Springs over Thanksgiving where I had a nice place and was a golf professional. Stupidly, I offered to cook for them. The wife would have nothing to do with that, so she forced us to go up the Tram…