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January Workshops Starting
Romance Workshop and Others… On January 7th and 8th, the regular workshops for January are starting. And that includes the brand new How to Write Romance workshop. Besides the Lifetime Workshop Subscribers who can take a workshop when they like, only one person has signed up for the Romance workshop. But I am still going to record it and have fun doing so. I want to work through it myself, to be honest, to nail down some points for my own writing. Plus a number of the Lifetime Workshop Subscribers have said they are interested, so will do it for them as well. The regular workshops last six weeks and…
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Six Decades
Now I Officially Feel Old… Thanks to the great writer Mel Odom, who pointed out on a post that he will have published in five decades when his new book comes out later this month, I was forced to do the same calculation. Sigh… When my next book (a large collection of 33 stories) is published on January 15th, I will have been published in six decades. I think I have that count right. 1 — Published my first short stories in 1974, and forty or fifty poems to literary magazines, so that counts the 1970s. 2 — Published a ton of stories and my first novel in 1988. 3…
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Book Birth Day
Kris Did An Awesome Post… And an important one. In fact, she and I have been thinking this way for a long time, just having a name for it now is really, really helpful in the attitude change that is required for this new world of writing. And as Kris does so well, she explained this attitude shift perfectly. So go read her post. You can find it at Book Birth Day. Might be a piece of advice that will save your career if you have been locked into the launch mentality of old publishing. Time to crawl out of the last century if you are and join 2020. Books…
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First Day New Year
A Good One Here… Actually, we started the day off watching the fantastic fireworks over the Strip here in Vegas. Nice night, not too cold, great fun. This this morning we were out toward Summerlin in a park, running a 5K charity run. We ran in the same park on New Year’s Eve in the early evening. So two runs in about 18 hours. I did fine on the first one, but I have a hip injury that slowed me down on the second one this morning. But I made it just fine. Slow, but fine. Now to give the injury a few days to heal before running again. However,…
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The Demands of a Streak
You Are Seeing It Tonight... It’s two hours into the new year and because of my blog streak of not missing a day in seven and a half years, I am typing this now. Now that is power. But I had a good New Year’s Eve. Got a bunch of things done earlier in the day, then Kris and I did a 5K fun run at 4 pm. Then more work in the evening, then we went to what is called the “wine deck” in our building that faces the Strip and watched the fireworks at midnight. (Our condo faces downtown.) So great fun, relaxing day while getting a bunch…
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I’m Doing The Great Publishing Challenge
Yup, I Will Be Documenting What I Am Doing… For those who want to jump into the Great Publishing Challenge of publishing 12 books in a year, you will also get my progress reports regularly as videos in the challenge. But I am taking it to another level, as you might expect. I will be publishing three times the challenge, or 36 books in one year. And if you are doing the challenge, you can watch me do it. But first off, if I was in the stage many of you are, here is how I would do the 12 book challenge. (Think how fantastic it would be that one…
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Some Pictures
We Had A Great Holiday Season… So thought I would post some pictures of a couple of the events. First off, on Saturday, Kris and I were joined by Val and Steph and we did a 5k charity run. Cold, but turned sunny. I walked a large part of it to take care of a strained muscle. Then we headed for a wonderful breakfast. So that’s the first picture. Then on Christmas Eve, Kris and I went out for a special dinner and the concierge in our building took a photo of us. Wonderful meal. Today I cooked us a turkey and while it was in the oven we went…
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A Tough Week…
For Writing Streaks and Challenges. Amazing how such a good time of the year can be so tough on writing. After all, it is the holiday season full of fun and family and travel. And that’s the problem… it’s the holiday season full of fun and family and travel. More streaks and challenges break in this last week before Christmas than any other time of the year. But thankfully, next week is the start of a new year and challenges and streaks can be fired back up then for the long winter. After forty years in this business, I have observed general times of the year where writing comes easy…
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Great Publishing Challenge
Something New… For much of 2019 we have been doing two challenges, one for writing novels, one for writing short stories. And a lot of novels or short stories have come out of those challenges that I enjoyed reading. And over the years I have also challenged myself to get books into print and many of you have watched me do that. So a new challenge that fits hand-in-hand with the Great Novel Challenge, The Great Short Story Challenge, and The Decade Ahead class. A challenge a little saner and a little crazier in the same breath. And again, the fee goes toward two workshop fees. Kris and I have been…
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Great Challenges
Lost Three This Week… Two writers from the Short Story Great Challenge and one from the Novel Great Challenge. And that is no surprise, considering the holiday stuff. In fact, to me, honestly, it is more of a surprise that more didn’t drop this week. And this next week will be brutal for many as well. However, the two in the short story workshop both had done over 26 stories in a row, so both of them got $900 in workshop credit. And over 26 new stories to market, use for promotion, get up indie. Total win! 26 short stories is more stories than most writers write in years. So…