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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…
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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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Another Fun Running Post…
Got Some Fantastic Pictures The professional photographer with Calico Racing, the great folks that put on this last weekend’s 5K took these pictures. The first one is Kris zooming past me… Yes Kris can zoom. Notice the enjoyment she is getting out of leaving me in the dust. Second picture me running… Third picture is of Kris running. I think this might be one of the best pictures of Kris ever taken. Can’t tell we really love staying in shape, can you?
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Another Note on Copyright Valuation
Head-Shaking But True… I talk copyright on this blog in any way and the letters and comments just dry up like they were hit by a bad desert wind on a hot summer day. Fun to watch, and I know these posts are just skipped by most. Makes them uncomfortable. But on the last valuation posts, I got a couple of private comments that went something like this… “How can my copyright be worth anything if I only sell a couple copies a month?” Or… “I am a new writer, my work has no value.” Well, in some ways, past performance and sales do help set value at that moment…