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A Lesson…
But Few Will Listen… The advice: Never let anyone tell you to not write something because it won’t sell. Never decide to not write something because it has been done to death before. Why I say no one will listen is because so many indie writers are wrapped up in writing to market, writing what they think will sell, or what some unknown person on the internet thinks will sell. And every indie writer thinks they have to be original with ideas and plotting when nothing is every original in either one. Tonight I read a story by an author. A really old idea, one I had seen a hundred…
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WMG Holiday Spectacular 2020 Funded!!
In Just Four Hours… It hit its $2,500 ask and is now quickly on the way to the first stretch reward. Four hours is a new record for us for any campaign if I remember right. And the stretch rewards have some fun books, including a Christmas ghost novel of mine where ghost agents and Poker Boy save Santa and the world in the process, plus a bunch of great Kris holiday books. And for writers, we are again doing three brand new Pop-Up classes for the stretch rewards that sort of go along with the Writing a Holiday Crime Story special workshop. Remember, the only place you will ever…
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2020 Holiday Spectacular
Is Now Live!! The 2020 Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter campaign is now live. Just as we did this year, for those who get the 2020 calendar in this campaign, you will get an original holiday story delivered to your inbox every day from American Thanksgiving (November 26th) through January 1st, 2021. (Yes, sort of an Advent Calendar using original short stories.) What a fantastic way to ride out of this crazy year. Over 25 professional writers have written original stories for this and the entire project is edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning editor. Kris also does an introduction letter every day for each story, so it is also like getting…
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Quick Post
With a Longer One Coming Later Today… I am making this quick because my web site is blinking in and out of service for the last hour or so. I thought that would be funny if the web site went down and I missed a blog right after 3,000. But like many times in the past eight years, it popped back alive long enough for me to post a quick post. Later in the day (Tuesday) I will be announcing here the start of a really cool 2020 Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter campaign. This is the second year we have done a Holiday Spectacular (basically an advent-style fiction calendar, where you…
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Blog 3,000 Days in a Row!!!
Without a Miss… Think that through…. That is 8 years, two months, and 19 days. A blog every day. Sometimes more than one blog a day if circumstances required it. Computer crashes… Yup! Internet connection failures… Yup! Power outages… Yup! Sickness and hospital stays… Yup! Kris very sick… Yup! Major move to new city… Yup! Major business office move… Yup! Biggest problem was nights I was too tired to care and had nothing to say… Those were the hard nights. Why do this? I have no damn idea, to be honest. None. Whatever reason I started this daily blog for (as I also started Smith’s Monthly on the same day) is…
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First Live Race of the Covid Time
Really Fun. Same, Yet Different… Small group, all social distanced at the starting line because they had been sending groups off for hours ahead of us. Temp checked when we checked in. It was a run in the dark with great street lamps on the course except for about a block, that part was pitch black. With a pond on one side, so kind of scary as well. And for me it was too warm. I have no idea when this heat wave here is going to break, but got a hunch when I am freezing this winter I am going to wish I hadn’t complained about the heat so…
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Exercise Update
Marathon is 4 Weeks Away… I did not have a good last two weeks since I set this goal. Most of it was the record heat still (we are still in the 90s here… how stupid is that?) And I am not going to a gym. First week I planned to do 49 miles, did just under 40. This week I am about the same pace, but running a live 5K tomorrow evening, the first live run since this pandemic started. So that should be fun. Next week I ramp up the milage and the running, see how that goes. So my goal is still the same. Get to the…
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Well, Next Week…
Kickstarter Seems to Have Forgotten Us… Said our campaign would be approved by the 15th. Nope. It is now the 16th. I don’t think there is a problem, just they seemed to have gotten busy or something. First time in 15 times that has happened. So now the 2020 Holiday Spectacular will launch next Tuesday, if they approve it. Not sure why they wouldn’t, but you never know these days. It is 2020 after all. (grin) So I’m going back to finishing up some writing and editing this weekend plus exercising. Turned in a book yesterday to WMG, like to finish up a couple more. Did seven miles today, even…
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Time Travel Story Bundle
I LOVE TIME TRAVEL BUNDLES… I have one of my Thunder Mountain time travel novels in this bundle. It is called Warm Springs and might be the most complex time travel novel or story I have ever written, and that is going some. And I am not curating this one, Kris is, which makes it even more fun since her take on Time Travel and my take on it are very different. So here is her blog introducing the time travel bundle called The Big Time Bundle… It is her words from here on out… Call it a guest blog, sort of… ——- The Big Time Bundle – Curated by…
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Caution on the November Writing Challenge…
It Can Be Deadly… If not done with the right attitude. What most of the people running the November challenge believe is that if you produce 50,000 words of typing, you can turn it into a story later. They push writers to write sloppy. And that is deadly. The math for 50,000 words in November is not that tough to figure. Basically 1,700 words a day. That’s about two hours a day. Not hard. So why not write a novel with those 50,000 words? Why write sloppy and then put the typing in a file and never go back to it??? Seems like a total waste of a month. Why…