• Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Holiday and a Cat

    Figured It Had Been a While… So tonight, a picture of the cat (Angel) who spends a lot of time on my lap watching my screen as I do posts. We put up one of three trees and Angel claimed it. It is now very festive around here. A cat and a Christmas tree. What more can you want out of a blog?  

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  running

    Great Santa Run

    Me and 5,000 Friends Out for A Run… Weirdly enough this year, even with the eye problems which made tripping a real hazard, I managed to run a ways. No Santa Run before this have I run at all. Just too many people, but Las Vegas Blvd has been redone, wide, pavement, smooth, and I managed to stay on my feet and with and ahead of Kris for a half mile or so before we turned onto older streets and I dropped to walking to stay as safe as I could. This is a major charity event for Opportunity Village and every year they try to have the record for…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Thinking About Next Year

    December 1st… Time for any fiction writer to start taking stock in how the year of writing went, and planning for the following year. I will talk later about 2022, but tonight I spent a lot of time really going over a challenge for 2023 and see what the benefits would be and the downsides. And more than anything, how the entire idea and challenge fits for me and my eyesight at the moment. It is supposed to be better, and it is improving slightly, but how much and by when is a moving target at the moment. That makes planning for the year a slight challenge, more than normal.…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    I HAVE A STORY UP!!

    A Cold Poker Gang Story!! That’s right, one of my stories that Kris wanted for the WMG Holiday Spectacular 2022 went out today!! It’s a Cold Poker Gang story and you can still get it just fine by going to www.wmgpublishinginc.com and signing up for the Holiday Calendar of a story per day. You will get the ones already sent out (such as my first one) and then get a story per day from there. Now would be a great time to get on board if you have missed it up to now. Read a holiday story every day. And for those of you who have read my story, wouldn’t this…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Thanksgiving Holidays

    We All Have Our Stories and Traditions… I had no tradition for this holiday growing up. None. My family was so unpleasant at its very core, a holiday forcing all of them into one place was my definition of a nightmare. So after five years of being out on my own, my father and his new wife (worse than my mother, which I must say took some doing) were in Palm Springs over Thanksgiving where I had a nice place and was a golf professional. Stupidly, I offered to cook for them. The wife would have nothing to do with that, so she forced us to go up the Tram…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Rebecca Moesta’s Birthday Dinner

    GREAT DINNERS ALL FIVE NIGHTS THIS WEEK! As Kevin said in his Facebook post with this picture: “Rebecca’s birthday dinner with Kris Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Todd McCaffrey, Mark Leslie Lefebvre, and the Winner Twins. Much fun (and sushi) was had by all.” I agree completely. Here is the picture so I can get away from this computer for the night and actually get some sleep.

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Licensing,  publishing

    Lots of Learning

    Amazing Week of Conversations and Learning.. Pretty exhausted after four days of getting up very early. But wow was it worth it. Major areas I have learned stuff about… Kickstarter… I will be sharing a bunch of this over time as we test some of it out, and also sometime this winter I will be updating the free Kickstarter class with a bunch of new suggestions. I will alert you here and over that class when we get it done. AI in Publishing. So, so many ways AI change indie publishing and our lives over the next five years. Art, audio, and text. Just amazing. I will do updates regularly…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Another Fun Day

    I Hope My Two Lectures and One Panel Went Well… I just got going and was my normal blunt self. Huge numbers of people in the two lectures, which was surprising to me, but they must have known that would happen since they put me in that big room. And fun being on the Kickstarter panel. Then I headed home in the late afternoon and an hour later walked down to the Arts District and met Kevin Anderson and the entire crew from D2D for pizza and a pub crawl. Fantastic fun, and Kevin and I got telling stories over beers about some of the old-timers in the field of…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    20 Books Convention Starting

    Yes, I Am Presenting… Two different talks on Wednesday and then a panel in the afternoon with the director of publishing of Kickstarter. Going to be fun. Looking forward to seeing a lot of old friends the next few days. Had a wonderful pizza dinner with Kevin Anderson and Rebecca Moesta this evening to start it all off. So Kris is giving a presentation tomorrow morning, then I have the three things on Wednesday, then Kris has another on Thursday. So I you will see us around the convention. And speaking of in-person conferences, there is now three openings in the January craft workshop Kris is teaching on Fantasy Caper.…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    A Magical Evening

    GLITTERING LIGHTS AT THE SPEEDWAY… Every year since we moved to Vegas, Kris and I go out and do a 5K (run… mostly walk) for charity. They want everyone dressed in their PJs, and kids and dogs are welcome. Seeing entire families dressed in matching pajamas and having fun is wonderful to watch. This year I am guessing over three thousand people showed up. What makes this so special is that sponsors from all over the city decorate under the grandstands, around the back of the track and back up, about 2 miles of nothing but Christmas lights. And the normal way to see the lights is by car, but…