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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…
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Making Writing Important
Deadly Issue… I talk about this problem writers have in many different workshops and in many different ways, hoping that I am heard. Most of the time my words go right by, or the writer nods and says, “That makes sense.” Then a week later has built up a project to be important without really thinking about it, and then wonder why critical voice has stopped them cold. I have had a couple people lately ask me why I can’t remember my own stories, or why I miss on Rule #4 and not the first three. I usually just laugh and say I am old and have a bad memory,…
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Kickstarter Campaign in the Works
Working On and Off On It All Weekend… New WMG Holiday Spectacular 2020. If you remember from last year, this is the cool idea Kris came up with to basically do an Advent Calendar with fiction. People who sign up get an original story a day to read from November 26th to January 1st. What a fun way to end this year, huh? Over 25 professional writers wrote stories for basically three books. 37 stories will be sent out in 37 days. And then the books will come out next October. In fact, the three books from last Holiday Spectacular 2019 will be released this week. How cool is that?…
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November Workshops Now Up
All On Teachable… December workshops will be also up and able to sign up in a few days. And last call to jump into the October workshops this weekend. They will vanish on Monday or so. I initially was going to push back the start date of the November workshops until the 10th, but then decided that the 3rd is fine because most people don’t start workshops for a few days anyway. And the first weeks are normally the easiest. For those who have been living in isolation, the 3rd is the US election. So here is the list of the November and December workshops. I am pretty sure that…
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Filler Post…
Meaning Nothing… Day 2,991 if the blogging streak. It’s Friday night. I hate Friday nights. Too many years of tending bar to ever like Friday nights. Of course, my last Friday night tending bar was in May 1987. Think I would be over it by now, huh? (grin) I spent the day doing workshop stuff, doing some reading, doing a bunch of writing, recording a workshop, and getting some miles in exercise. Still 12-14 degrees above normal here, so making it almost impossible for too many miles. But I am getting some miles in. I have very, very bad feet (from being too poor as a high school kid to…
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One of My Favorite Pictures…
And Favorite Trips… Even though cows did explode and I almost got injured or killed… Grandmaster Jack Williamson fell in love with a story I turned into the very first quarter of Writers of the Future 37 or 38 years ago and fought to have it in the first book, even though I’m pretty sure Algis Budrys wasn’t so certain about the story. I didn’t learn what Jack had done until a party where I met Jack for the first time at Writers of the Future. To me, Jack Williamson was a god. He had published his first short story in 1928 and published continuously since. I was afraid to…