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Story Twenty-Six
DAY TWENTY-SIX… As I said last night, on my wall here in the office is a breakdown of the Smith’s Monthly issues I am working on. Ten issues ahead. I have started to put some of that on the widget to the side of the posts, and will update all that in a week. Patreon folks and subscribers, you will be getting ten issues over the next five months as I get caught up. (grin) For three years I tried to start off most issues with a Poker Boy story, but have only written one and have two others. So for the ten issues on the board that will come out as…
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Story Twenty-five
DAY TWENTY-FIVE… Humming along just fine now. Might actually make this challenge, which considering this month, is a flat miracle. We shall see in five days. Today I worked at WMG and did some walking as well. Got four miles in today, slowly ramping that up for the first of May as well. Going back to five miles per day minimum and adding in running again. Going to make another push toward a marathon again. Then I came home to cook dinner, take a nap, and watch some of The Voice from last night. Then around 2:30 a.m. finally got everything done with workshop stuff and got to my writing…
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The Magic Bakery: Chapter Six
Chapter Six… I get questions all the time about free. Should an author put up their book for free? How about their first book in a series? Does leaving something up for free forever work? Interestingly enough, The Magic Bakery works perfectly to illustrate the answer to these questions so writers can decide for themselves. All I’m going to be talking about in this chapter is basic, standard-retail sales practices. I won’t tell you one thing new in the world. You can see some of these practices working every day from grocery stories to music stores. But explaining these practices to authors who do not understand basic sales of retail has…
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Story Twenty-four
DAY TWENTY-FOUR… Started off the day working at WMG Publishing and doing all the banking stuff and things like that which is my job as CFO. I also managed to do two covers for the stories of the last two days. Then home to take a nap, cook dinner, and get to the workshops assignments. Got that done around 1 a.m. and headed to watch a little television. Then around 2:30 a.m. I got to my writing computer. I grabbed my half-title sheets and one of the first half titles I saw was “A Lady…” which I am sure came from a mystery magazine. So I kept flipping through titles…
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Story Twenty-Three plus stuff
DAY TWENTY-THREE… Started off the day at the writer’s lunch around 2 p.m. About twelve or so writers and great discussions, since five or six were there from the just-finished science fiction workshop. Great lunch, folks. Great discussions. Thanks! Then I basically took the rest of the day off until around 2:30 a.m. I napped, watched a bunch of television, napped some more. Didn’t even do the cover for the story from yesterday. So two covers to do tomorrow. Then around 2:30 a.m., very groggy, I got to my writing computer. Since last night I did the origin story of Tombstone Dan, one of the two main characters in a…
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Story Twenty-Two
DAY TWENTY-TWO… Science fiction workshop just ended here at the coast tonight. Kris was teaching and I had the pleasure of saying hi before each workshop and by when they were finished in the evening. A great group of writers. And wow did they work hard. I got home around 11 p.m. and went to join Kris, who was in front of the television being a vegetable, which she deserved to be. She read far over a half million words of fiction and assignments this week. So after I watched some television, took a nap, messed around with some e-mail, took another short nap, it was almost 3 a.m. before…
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Story Twenty-One
DAY TWENTY-ONE… Tonight I almost got caught by a beginner’s mistake. Real close, actually. I went to look up a fact and found myself an hour later still playing with research. And it was for nothing I really needed for the story. I just thought it would be cool to look up. Yikes! The worst waste of writing time is research. Not don’t take me wrong, writers often need to research. I am no exception to that and I have fifty or so major research books here in my office, not counting access to our major nonfiction library, not counting the good old Google. But I NEVER research on writing…
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Story Twenty
DAY TWENTY… Almost went for two stories tonight. And strangely enough, I started off groggy and not wanting to write anything. But the challenge forced me to the writing computer at around 2 a.m. A good start time for me. I sort of fumbled my way through the half title-sheets, trying to find something that would get my energy going. I spotted one word. “Delightfully.” Now that was fun. Two pages farther in my half-title sheets, I saw the word “Dizzy” and knew I had my title. “Delightfully Dizzy” had to be a Marble Grant story, so I typed that on the subtitle and off I went. I typed in…
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Story Nineteen and Some Updates on Challenge
DAY NINETEEN… Turned out to be a fun day today. Most of you don’t know we are having a coast workshop here right now. Fifteen professional writers working with Kris on science fiction. I get to just sort of drift around the edges and talk to them when they appear. Tonight I got to help Kris with a fun assignment. She can really come up with some amazing stuff, as many of you have noted about the assignments in some of the online workshops. (grin) Also, got three people signing up for the short story challenge with me being a first reader. Two for May, one for June. I’m excited about…
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Quick Update to Short Story Challenge
Simple Update and Information… There are two start dates on this. May 2nd as I said originally and June 1st. It means I will be reading stories through July (If anyone decides to take me up on this) but that is fine. Both are 60 day windows to do the challenge. Another note: I will be done with my short story challenge by the first of May and will be starting into writing novels. So I will not be writing short stories at the same time as reading them. Sign Up Information: If you are thinking about this seriously, and think you can write 30 short stories either in one…