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Issue of Smith’s Monthly Going Out
ACTUALLY THREE ISSUES OVER THE NEXT WEEK… Yup, slowly getting back on track. Got a ways to go yet, but getting closer. I would like to be back on track by issue #50. (And yes, when I think about filling my own magazine with 50 novels and over two hundred short stories and other stuff for over four years, I sort of shake my head as well.) But we shall see. I have some writing to do that’s for sure. (grin) But at the moment, subscribers and Patreon supporters will be getting three issues over the next week or so. Today was a fun day up at the office because…
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Coast Mystery Workshop Started
Writers in the Back Room… Tonight at 7 p.m., a bunch of writers from around the country gathered in the meeting room in the WMG offices for a mystery workshop taught by Kris. Looks like a great group and I got to spend about thirty minutes with them before Kris kicked me out and into my office where I worked on Writing into the Dark online workshop. Speaking of coast workshops, a few openings in the Master Class starting on October 21st because of a few cancellations. And also there are three spots in the Anthology workshop in late Feb. If interested, write me. They are invite workshops, but only…
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Crashing Early On a Friday
Been Going Steadily All Day… Took out about forty Black Cat Magazines from 1895 to 1900 for Billy at Pop Culture to sell. That was fun. They are very rare and mostly in fantastic condition. They are a digest-sized magazine that Kris and I have had for a very long time and neither of us have any reason to ever look at them. So off they go. Then I worked up at the office the rest of the afternoon and then home to do email and other stuff all evening. Got a few more brave souls signed up on the challenges starting in October, but still room. Any questions, feel…
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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…
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The Attitude of a Challenge
A Lot Like What Is Needed To Write A Novel… Since I have been talking about the challenges the last two nights, and I got some great letters today from a few brave souls who are interested, I thought I would go over in general the attitude it takes to do a challenge like these. First off, you can never consider the writing “work” in any regard. Writing is play, what you come home from work to do. So part of the attitude about these challenges (or just writing in general) is take the word “work” away from it. You do the best you can and release and move on.…
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Some More Challenge Details
A Few More Details… For those interested in the challenges I announced last night, here are a few more details about them. Still lots of room in both challenges. First I want to stress the point of this is to help writers and have fun and get some novels and stories done. I also function as a form of cheerleader along the way to help you keep going. — For the novel challenge, you can start writing in September as long as you have no more than 50% of the novel done before October. — Short story challenge only goes two months, but the novel challenge goes to January 15th…
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New Story and Novel Challenge For You
I Am That Crazy… I am going to do it again. I am offering to be a first reader for some of you. I am basically done with all the reading from the summer challenges I did. Those challenges were simple and turned out to be fun for me. And the writers who participated said it challenged them to get writing done they might not have gotten done. And they all got the workshops. That was the idea. Push the writing and get me reading your work and also get workshops out of it. So I looked at my schedule for the next year and realized the only chance I…
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Almost Forgot
Got Busy Reading… Over four years of putting something here every day and tonight I actually was headed for bed when I remembered to put up this blog. Just been finishing up the reading for the challenges from the summer. Wonderful fun. For those of you in Florida, hang in there. The entire country is thinking of you and watching in horror. Some announcements tomorrow night. Until then…
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Dr. Jerry Pournelle
Jerry left us yesterday… I have actually known Jerry Pournelle since 1982, which seems like an impossible amount of time. We were not close, so no need to feel bad for me because of his passing. Give your thoughts to his family and very close friends. They are hurting today. For me, as I assume for many others, Jerry Pournelle was one of those who always seemed to be there in the science fiction world, and I have many, many interesting memories with Jerry. Actually, early on I only knew him as another professional writer and I sat on many panels with him. We didn’t agree about much of anything,…
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Short Fiction Living Post Coming
I Have Promised… Since I’ve been working on some short stories for Smith’s Monthly, I was reminded about my old making-a-living posts. Over the years I have done periodic posts about how it is possible in this new world to make a living at writing short fiction only. That belief hasn’t changed. Math hasn’t changed much either. So I’ll update that next week for 2017. Stay tuned. It seems to always be a popular post in different ways. (grin) Challenges This summer I did some challenges with writers to write either 30 short stories in 30 or 60 days and/or also three novels in three months. If they did they…