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Myth Believer
With Apologies to Jeff Foxworthy… I deal a lot with writer myths. And I will be doing new Killing the Sacred Cows of… posts soon. But one thing I noticed back when Foxworthy was doing his “You might be a redneck…” jokes is that they always had a ring of truth in them. So for fun, I thought I would show how that truth can sometimes be pointed at those who believe in the myths of publishing. If one or two of these strike home, don’t blame me. It’s your myth. Not the Top Ten Myth Believer Sayings… (Just ten random. Trust me, there are a lot more.) 1… If…
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Challenges Are Battles Against Yourself…
Nothing Else Matters… Just You… Challenges have this nasty habit of quickly uncovering issues in your motivation and your consistency in writing and other life issues you are dealing with. This challenge for me uncovered that my vision stamina is not strong yet. If I spend a lot of time during the day, as I did a few days this last week, at my business computer, by the time I get to the writing computer, I am very limited in the amount of time I have. I love writing at night, and my eyes are better at night. I expected to be slow, didn’t expect that sight issue would be…
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Getting Back In The Chair…
Can’t Count the Words for the Challenges… But figured since my writing has been so off and on for the last five months because of the eye issues, I had better spend time back in my writing chair kicking off the dust. Feels great, let me tell you. Can not believe how much I have missed being in that chair over the last five months. I sat down tonight and said, “I’m home!” Couple things I noticed. I am not typing as clean as I used to because the eye is not totally back, so getting letters mixed up when my fingers get off the keys or in the wrong…
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Branding
To Genre… There are a lot of elements to branding in fiction, so much so that we are thinking of doing an entire six week regular workshop on the topic. (Let me know if interested. No requirement to take it.) Branding becomes critical not only the in basics like genre covers, but in so much more, such as licensing, trademarks, and overall value of a book or series, let alone its sales and licensing. And wow are there a lot of elements that go into branding in fiction. (Six weeks worth easy.) Most writers I’ve talked to tell me they understand branding, but as I stare at just their covers,…
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Kickstarter is Live!!!
And Fun for Me!! You can see it at DEAN WESLEY SMITH Starter Kit. All kinds of my books, some great special workshops coming back from other Kickstarters (You get a choice if you missed one before) and some fun stretch rewards, including a brand new lecture series. And I was going to add the challenge there as well, but alas it breaks Kickstarter Rules. Sorry. And take a look at the branding. I’ll talk about it later. Only ten days on this one, so really tight turn. Don’t miss it.
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Writers at the Ball Park
Great Fun on a Great Afternoon.. Kris and I and Lisa Collins headed for the Royals/Rockies pre-season game here in Vegas. The park is fantastic, we had good seats, and my eyes are better enough that I could actually track balls after they were hit, which was a worry of mine going. Made the afternoon a lot more fun, let me tell you. Kris did a great post about the afternoon on Facebook. I just wanted to put the picture here of what it looks like when two New York Times bestselling writers go to a baseball game. It looks exactly like any two people. (grin)
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Learning In Writing
Not Like Other Skills… This came from a fun conversation with other writers today at lunch. When you learn something in fiction writing, you can’t just take that learning and apply it like learning how to fix a pipe or do something in Photoshop. I wish sometimes it worked that way, but alas it does not. So when you learn something from a writing book, or another writer’s work, or a workshop like we teach, you must do your best to understand it while learning it, then go back to writing and forget what you learned. That’s right, forget it. When you learn something about a craft area of writing,…
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A Fun Challenge…
This Is Only An Idea… Many of you know I got basically an eye infection in my only good eye back in late October that pretty much made me blind for a time and vision challenged for months now. Docs said it would take six months to get better and it has been getting better. Still not back yet, but I am getting back reading. I will be catching up on workshop stories I have let go (thanks for understanding) and even more fun I will be reading Kris’s new Diving novel that has been sitting on my table for three weeks. Damn that is exciting. But even more exciting…
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Not Enough Hours
We All Have Those Kinds of Days… No matter how we try, there is just not enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. In the old days, I would just short myself on sleep, but not these days. I think I burnt out that ability somewhere in my early sixties. So Advanced Character Development is a Tuesday Class, and responses and the new week will be posted on Tuesday. Late Tuesday, so many of you will already be in bed when that happens. Don’t write me. Just shows me you don’t read this. (grin) Today (which is now Tuesday), Kris and I run screaming…
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Wow… SF Wins Oscars
What a Stunner… As a sf writer, I have been watching for years and years and decades for a science fiction movie to get some attention at the Oscars. Nope, never happened. Kris loves to watch the Oscars, so I went downstairs on a break to watch the end and a sf movie had already won best supporting actress with Jamie Lee Curtis, and best supporting actor. And then while I was watching, the sf movie won best script, best director, best actress, and then best picture. And Brandon Fraser won best actor. We really are in an alternate reality. Or a multiverse. I write an entire series of time…