Bet You Didn’t Know I Wrote YA
I Have For Most of My Writing Career…
My very first published young adult novel was an Iron Man novel. It was called, if I remember right, Steel Terror. Part of a series one publisher was doing back in the early 1990s in conjunction with Marvel. I had fun writing it, but the series died and that was it.
Over the years I wrote a few other young adult novels and stories here and there. But I have two ya novels that were in Smith’s Monthly, first as a serial, then as stand-alone novels. Now, you can get one of those novels in a nifty Storybundle called THE LIGHT IN THE DARK YA BUNDLE.
The book I have in there is a pure western young adult called The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy. I hope this winter to write more Buffalo Jimmy novels for Smith’s Monthly.
I’ll talk more about this bundle coming up, but if you like young adult fiction, including one from Kris and a Fiction River full of young adult stories, this is the bundle for you to grab while it is available.
Challenges
Only two people have signed up for the short story challenge so far. And there is still room in the novel challenge as well. Details over the last few days. If you have questions, write me.
If interested in signing up, just write me. They are going to be great fun.
SHORT STORY Challenge:
— Write thirty short stories in 60 days. You can take the full time or you can write them in a month. Up to you.
— I will charge $600 to be your first reader. If you finish 30 stories in 60 days, you get two online workshops of your choice, a $600 value. (In essence, I will read for free if you do the challenge.)
— If you feel the challenge is not working for you, I will offer you an off-ramp at various points and you can take it and get the two online workshops. So you can try this risk free.
NOVEL Challenge:
— Write three novels between October 1st and January 15th. You can take the full time or you can write them quicker. Up to you.
— I will charge $600 to be your first reader. If you finish the three novels in the time, you get two online workshops of your choice, a $600 value. (In essence, I will read for free if you do the challenge.)
— Novels can be any length over 30,000 words and at least half of the first one must be written during the time of the challenge.
— If you feel the challenge is not working for you, I will offer you an off-ramp and you can take it and get the two online workshops. I also will give you two online workshops if a life event comes up and you can’t finish.
October Online Workshops
Information at
www.wmgpublishingworkshops.com
October Workshops Available
Class #37… Oct 3rd … Writing into the Dark
Class #38… Oct 3rd … Endings
Class #39… Oct 3rd … Point of View
Class #40… Oct 3rd … Writing Mysteries
Class #41… Oct 3rd … Speed
Class #42… Oct 3rd … Teams in Fiction
Class #43… Oct 4th … Depth in Writing
Class #44… Oct 4th … How to Edit Your Own Work
Class #45… Oct 4th … Character Development
Class #46… Oct 4th … Writing Secondary Plot Lines
Class #47… Oct 4th … Advanced Depth
Class #48… Oct 4th … (TBA)
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7 Comments
JM6
You’ve mentioned taking short story ideas and turning them into novels. And I’ve seen you take a short story series and write a novel in the series (Slots of Saturn). Have you ever gone the other way … take a novel or novel series and write short stories for the series? If so, do you find that more difficult than moving from short to long? Or, as I suspect, does it always just depend on the story? But if you haven’t written short stories after writing novels, why do you think that is?
dwsmith
JM6, I got both ways all the time. I often in my 30 day short story challenge take a story and turn it into a novel in one series or another. Or use the story as the first few chapters of the novel and just keep going. I think in the April one I got six or seven novels out of those 30 short stories. And in my critiques to the writers in short story challenge I saying often it is a larger idea and could be a novel. Just said that to Kris last night on a story she just finished. Doesn’t mean the short story doesn’t work, just that it can expand if you want it to.
So I go both ways, long to short and short to long, all the time. Regularly. Stories just have their own length and sometimes they go long, sometimes they are just a short story.
Thomas Sewell
30 stories in 60 days? Sheesh… I remember back in my day when 30 stories in 30 days was the standard…. 🙂
Laurie
The shortest time I’ve ever written a novel, 55,000 words, was two months during school (had to take a few breaks due to exams and assignments so actual writing time was less than 6 weeks spread out over a two month period). This semester will be the heaviest yet but I’m definitely doing this challenge. I have a question though, how will you know we wrote it during that time period?
PS. I’m a huge fan of this blog. You pretty much say everything I’ve been saying for years (makes me sound old but I’m only twenty but I’ve been writing for years). I’ve been told by many writers to rewrite, but I couldn’t say hell no fast enough because I like moving onto new projects. I was told to write to market, but I refused to be a writing prostitute (I died when I saw you say the same thing on one of your blog posts). I ignore most people’s writing advice on my stories especially when they’re done because I trust my writing even (my English teacher thinks I’m a terrible writer but my story [240,000 word adventure] was featured and on the hot list for months on Wattpad which means it’s really popular so I must be doing something right). I’m not published yet but I want to be and that’s why I’ve been reading blogs on self-publishing since I like the control. Thanks for the help and advice you post especially the Killing The Sacred Cows series since I actually believed some of those things.
dwsmith
Laurie, It’s just a trust thing. No big deal to me either way, but you will get more out of it if you write the challenge. However, you can have 50% of a novel done before October first. And I will have weekly check-ins to see how things are going along the way and to help if you get stuck.
Laurie
I won’t be taking the online workshops (I’m in university and living in a third world country where $300 is a lot of people’s monthly salary). I’m still doing the challenge though. Three novels in three months. *cracks knuckles* Bring it on! It’ll be a nice break from the drudgery of school.
Laurie
Guess that means I won’t be a part of the official few but I’ll be working along just the same. I was planning to do a personal challenge like this anyway.