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Now I’m Getting Nervous
This Is A Good Thing… Six Days and Counting… If I was not getting nervous about the challenge of writing ten novels in one hundred days, the challenge wouldn’t be challenging me. So yes, I am nervous and excited at the same time. Where my focus has gone now, six days out from the start, is making sure my schedule here in Vegas has enough time built into it. I have only really been here for three weeks. So everything, including this office, is still new. That will make this interesting. I can’t just drop down into old habits and routines of 23 years on the coast. That’s worrisome all…
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Summary Of Everything Going On
Four Major Things… So I thought I would try to sort them out and be clear on them, especially since a couple of these are ending soon or have limited space. 1… Novel and Short Story Challenge… Both the Novel Challenge and the Short Story Challenge have started. I have one spot open in both challenges still, so you can jump in any time between now and Tuesday, September 4th. Then it closes off. Costs $600 but you get two workshop credits for just giving either challenge a try. More information at Novel And Short Story Challenge. 2… Follow Along Living at Pulp Speed Five. I announced this last night…
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Living At Pulp Speed Five
Here I Go Again… A challenge to myself and a way for some of you to follow closely along and learn. That’s right, a crazy idea on both sides. See more below on this. Let me back into explaining this. Pulp Speed comes from Star Trek War Speed and is a way to sort of shorthand the speed that old pulp writers used to write at regularly for years. Pulp Speed One is 1 million words per year or about 83,000 words per month. So if you write 83,000 words in a month, you wrote at Pulp Speed that month. Pulp Speed Two is 1.2 million words in a year…
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Talking About Sayings
Saw A Good One Tonight.. “If you think you understand what you’re doing, you’re not learning anything.” Wow does this apply to writing. Writing, as many have learned in the workshops, is an art that the more you learn, the more you realize you have to learn. I love that part of it and always chase the next level up, constantly learning. So many of our workshops are awareness workshops, designed to basically tell you this area of writing and craft is here, and that your creative voice can use it when needed. Writing with Depth, which many have taken, is one of those “Wow, didn’t know that was how…
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Two Sayings On My Office Wall
Both Have Been On My Wall For Decades… And they were on my office walls before that. So when we moved this last spring and early summer, I took the two sayings down and brought them with me for my new office. So what kind of sayings would I carry with me for so many decades? Almost since I started writing. The first, framed in a cheap mat and dirty and faded says simply… “If we could dare to write as ill as those whose voices haunt us still…” That is part of an Edward Gosse poem written way back and the poem is in the public domain. But think…
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Challenges Update… Novel, Short, and Exercise
Novel And Short Story Challenge There are two challenges starting September 1st. A short story challenge and a novel challenge. I sent letters to those signed up in the challenges tonight since they start in a week. (Room open in both challenge if interested.) What I got as responses from three people so far were that they were surprised that I wanted them to check in every Sunday during the challenges. Of course I do. Over the space of two or three months, all of us have down times and get stuck or have something going slower than desired. I will be there for everyone in the challenges to report…
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A Fun Harlan Story
And Some Books as Proof… My best friend in publishing, as many of you know, was a book dealer by the name of Bill Trojan from Eugene, OR. Now Bill had a heart of gold and at times could be a real jerk on the outside. But he was well-respected in the science fiction and mystery booksellers worlds. For those of you who don’t know publishing history, for a long time in the 1960s and early 1970s, soft-core porn was written and sold by the millions outside of the normal book channels. By todays standards, these books would not even be considered hot romance, let alone erotica. But they were…
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The Two New Workshops Again
September Has Two New Workshops… Full descriptions below of the two new ones. I posted these a while back but I think they got missed. The How to Use Tags workshop is looking to be a special one. Difficult because most writers can’t begin to see them, but worth the time. To sign up for any of these, simply go to Teachable and sign up on the course directly. If you have a workshop credit you would like to use, or any questions, write me directly at dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com Told you we were going to be doing a bunch of new workshops this year. Two in July and two in September…
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A GREAT QUESTION
Finally Got a Dean-Level Insane Question… On the novel and short story challenge starting in September. You know the one, write thirty short stories in sixty days or write three novels in three months. The challenge that is almost full. Someone asked me today if they could do both at the same time. I LOVE THAT! My level of nuts challenge. And, of course, I said sure. And I offered the person a discount if they wanted to try it. Second challenge at half price (still get two workshops). Both challenges for $900 and get four workshops. Why did I love that question? That is exactly the question I would…
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I Wasn’t Rich
But I Made Learning The Most Important Thing… I got a comment from a person in a letter after my post about going and learning from long-time professionals. It was a passing comment this person and not made in any way bad. But it sent me laughing. The comment was basically “Good thing you had money.” The reference was to my early days in writing and me having money in those days was so far from the truth as to be on another planet. I had no money. None. Let me give you a few stories. I went to my first convention in 1982 and shared a ride with three…