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In The Heart of Forgetting
This Week Is Smack In The Middle… …of the Time of Great Forgetting. Actually, might be a little closer to the end, but it clearly is the worst week. I can see it in the number of assignments turned in, in the number of comments about posts, both in letters and online, and in the lack of chatter about writing on different lists. For those of you who have not heard me talk about this fascinating time for writers, it is when all thoughts of the New Year’s Resolutions have vanished and when writing seems to be something you will do tomorrow. It starts early May and runs through late…
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What I Learned
A Very Quick List of the Main Thing I Learned from Different Writers… Just the main thing I learned from each of them that sticks with me… I learned much more from each one, of course, but this is the main thing from each that shaped me into the writer I am today. Why I remember each of these lessons is because I learned them deep. Very deep. Ray Bradbury… I learned from Ray that writing stories one-a-day or one-a-week does not lower the quality of the story or its value. Harlan Ellison… As I said last night, I learned it is possible to write clean, one-draft award-winning fiction. Algis…
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Another Picture of the New Office
Under Construction… Life goes on. A second blog tonight. I worked today with my trusty companion, Gavin, to put together another new desk for my office. Tomorrow I start exercising. And maybe do a little writing on a story for a charity anthology honoring another friend who just died. And some workshop stuff for the Master Business Class. Kris got this picture right before we headed out for lunch.
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Harlan Has Left The Building
Harlan Ellison Died In His Sleep… I am sure that over the next few days you will hear good and bad things about Harlan, and a ton of Harlan stories, as people like to call them. I have my share as well. Not going to give you many. At least not here. I considered Harlan a friend. Kris and I got to know him in 1987 when we started up Pulphouse and he was a friend and mentor to us for a lot of years. And I had read his writing for years before that, including The Glass Teat columns. We were not in touch much the last decade because…
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A Great Take On Writing Into The Dark
Writer Michael La Ronn Video… Michael La Ronn, a fine writer of a lot of great books who also does a great podcast, is doing a series on YouTube about writing books, and he featured my book Writing into the Dark. At first I thought this would be a sort of review, and since I don’t tend to read or watch reviews, good or bad, of my own work, I had thanked him and not watched what he had done. Then a friend watched it and said it was so much more than a review and I needed to watch it. So I did. And it is so much more…
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I Seem To Have Fallen Off
Heinlein’s Rule #4… As I am moving into my new office here in Las Vegas, I am organizing as well, as would be normal. Making lists of things to do, where I need to be caught up and where it can wait a week or so to get solidly in place again. And as I am sorting papers and other stuff I am finding things I had forgotten about. And in the papers I am uncovering unpublished short stories. And not just a few short stories. Nope. A ton of short fiction, meaning a very large stack. In fact, I have found more short stories unpublished from this year than…
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At My New Desk
Still Only Partially Moved In… But moved in enough that I am typing this from the new desk and will get assignments and such caught up tomorrow. And I have a second new desk to put together still. And a ton of getting paperwork together. But over the next few days I will be getting caught up. And finally I will be sending out hotel codes for the Master Business Class and Anthology workshop. So stay tuned for those if you are signed up. Also will be catching up a ton of other stuff. Amazing how far behind a person can get on a monster move. Stay tuned. Almost there.…
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Nifty Stuff In the Bookstore
Most Of You Don’t Know This… Our bookstore, North By Northwest Books and Antiques has one of the largest pharmaceutical collections in the world. All for sale. Sheldon McArthur, the former owner, loved collecting the stuff and he even found old drugstores that had gone out of business in the 1940s but nothing had been touched for fifty years. He would go there and clean them out. I bought it all when I bought the bookstore. Well, our store and strange collection was discovered by a YouTube program called Finding Goodies where these guys go around and look for nifty stuff and do videos about it. Dan (who does an…
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Home In Vegas
Six Hours of Driving Today… Home, good dinner with Kris, catching up on email. So all is good. Got some fun idea for posts coming this week, so stay tuned. Monthly Regular Workshops… You can find them under Online Workshops to the right of this post. Sign up for July on Teachable.com. For credits or workshops beyond July, write me and pay through Paypal. Each regular workshop is 6 weeks long. Again, it will take you about three hours per week on your own pace to do each of these if you do the assignments. These are the starting dates of upcoming regular workshops. All have openings at the moment. Class…
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Day of Driving
Getting Closer to Las Vegas… Just a day of driving. The first two trips I drove to Vegas were in an older-model van, one non-stop with the cats. The last trip was driving a loaded uHaul truck. This trip I am in the Cadillac, taking it down to Vegas. This drive so far is easy and smooth, heaven compared to the first three. And mostly paid for by my tournament winnings. Back on regular schedule when I get home in Vegas tomorrow. So for tonight, from some hotel suite somewhere along some freeway, I say goodnight. And once again hit my daily blog challenge by saying really nothing at all.…