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More On Dean Challenges
Some Great Questions This Weekend… Main question is that if I go past a million words, does that mean anyone in the challenge must as well? Nope. If I write past a million words (love how you guys are worried about that while I am worried with the eyes of just getting close to that number), the challenge is capped at one million. So the full folks need to write that much, the half need to write 500,000 words. If I do 800,000 words, that is the mark for the full and 400,000 is for the half. I will be reporting every week on both challenges with a video. Every…
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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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Dean Challenges… Two of them…
Both a Full and a Half Challenge… Last night I mentioned I was thinking about doing a challenge for anyone who wanted to try to match or beat the number of consumable words I wrote from April 1st 2023 until December 31st, 2023. Nine months. I said what I hoped to hit, but of course that is just the plan and we all know how plans go. (grin) But I also suggested that I would set up a challenge for anyone who wanted to try to match me. A challenge similar to the other challenges already there. And a couple people thought they could keep up or beat me, which…
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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…
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Your Favorite?
Michael La Ronn Does His Favorites… Michael La Ronn, who is a great writer and also has an amazing YouTube channel, decided to do his top ten favorite WMG Workshops and Classes. It is amazing video, fun and well done. Watch it. I have it posted below. Thanks, Michael. He describes some of the classes far, far better than I can because he is coming from the student side of things. But WMG Publishing has over 300 different active workshops, classes, lectures, and extra fun stuff about writing and publishing on Teachable. And more starting up every month. Yes, it is a lot. Any aspect of writing and publishing you…
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New Picard Show Surprising…
Almost Like Next Gen Trek… Kris and I gave up on Picard season 2 about halfway. Too stupid for words and I have hated “Q” from the very start. I hated buying “Q” stories for the Strange New Worlds anthology series for a decade, but them some writer would write a great “Q” story and make me buy it. Annoyed me every time. So this year we decided to watch the first episode tonight of Picard when it dropped and shocker!!! It was actually Trek, with the cool ships, the great characters, big bad unseen aliens, and battle scenes. So much fun. Worth watching it. Sort of like Next Gen…
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Home Safely
Watched The Game… Then fixed a few workshops that had glitched and not loaded week #6 while I was gone. Sorry about that. The Superstars conference was great fun and I loved all the conversations with other writers. And I learned a ton, right up and through the dinner with Mark and Kevin and Allyson and Rebecca after closing ceremonies. I think over the week I had at least five different business meetings, and then a ton of great lunches and dinners and just sitting and talking with great writers like Robert Jeschonek and Joanna Penn. Super fun. Thanks, all, for the great conversations. I got great feedback on my…