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Sort of Rest and Errands Day
Yup, New York Times Bestsellers Just Do Regular Stuff… I have sold more millions of books than I want to think about and last time I counted was five years ago now. And here I talk about workshops and helping writers and doing posts with observations and about my running or bundles my books are in. But this is a filler blog about my day. Feel free to jump to tomorrow. So today was errands. And rest. So I am wasting your time, you know, to show how writers are just normal folks, as you all know. I wanted to rest today because, to be honest, I just sort of…
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Rest Day
More Like Space Cadet Day… Just no focus, so I didn’t fight it. Got about 7 miles of exercise, did some email, cooked dinner, ate too much. Started two different projects, both got “oh squirreled” in short order. Didn’t even bother with turning on my writing computer. Walked twice down to our office before realizing I hadn’t put my Fitbit on. I hate waiting for this election. Too damn distracting. (I won’t let political comments through, I am just saying…) So off to watch a Holiday Romance Movie on Lifetime… My brain might be up for that.
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Filler Post…
Meaning Nothing… Day 2,991 if the blogging streak. It’s Friday night. I hate Friday nights. Too many years of tending bar to ever like Friday nights. Of course, my last Friday night tending bar was in May 1987. Think I would be over it by now, huh? (grin) I spent the day doing workshop stuff, doing some reading, doing a bunch of writing, recording a workshop, and getting some miles in exercise. Still 12-14 degrees above normal here, so making it almost impossible for too many miles. But I am getting some miles in. I have very, very bad feet (from being too poor as a high school kid to…
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One of My Favorite Pictures…
And Favorite Trips… Even though cows did explode and I almost got injured or killed… Grandmaster Jack Williamson fell in love with a story I turned into the very first quarter of Writers of the Future 37 or 38 years ago and fought to have it in the first book, even though I’m pretty sure Algis Budrys wasn’t so certain about the story. I didn’t learn what Jack had done until a party where I met Jack for the first time at Writers of the Future. To me, Jack Williamson was a god. He had published his first short story in 1928 and published continuously since. I was afraid to…
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Doc Smith and My Family
Some Strange Similarities… I got to know Verna Smith Trestrail, E.E. “Doc” Smith’s only daughter way back in 1974. Her father had been dead for about a decade at that point and I had never had the pleasure to meet him, but Verna was wonderful. Since Doc graduated from the University of Idaho and the writing group I was in there, and the science fiction club, was thinking of putting on a convention, I suggested that they invite Verna and have Doc be the honorary guest of honor. They went for it and MosCon was born, a great little convention that lasted for years and is trying to make a…
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Another Way-Back Post
Just For Fun… This is a picture taken by photographer Beth Gwinn of a large group of writers and editors at Westercon in 2000 or 2001. Not sure. About twenty years ago. Looks like some sort of Locus Award ceremony. Sadly, a lot of the people in this picture are now no longer with us. And I suck at names, so I am going to miss a few. Very sorry about that. Starting on the right and going left is Kristine Rusch, Gardner Dozois, Connie Willis, Lucus Shephard, Ursula LeGuin, Tim Powers, Mark Kelly, Steve Barnes, Jacob Weisman, Beth Meachem, Tom Dohorety, Charles Brown, Nina Hoffman, and Janice Gelb. Thanks…
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More Way Back Stuff
Picture Then and Now… We are in the middle of the Fantasy Study Along workshop, so sort of busy, like a great deal. Some great reading and such. So instead of doing a blog that would take my brain, I decided to put up a picture from the way-back machine. The first picture is in my publisher’s office on the second floor of the Pulphouse Publishing Inc. building in Eugene, Oregon, in January of 1991. It was taken by James Fiscus. I was 40 years old in that picture and the publisher of the 5th largest publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in the nation for the third straight…
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The Need For Cat Pictures
Especially Today… I normally hate Fridays for a ton of historical reasons, but today I hate this Friday even more. 2020 sucks and today it just got worse. So instead of dwelling on death and politics and pandemic, I figure it was just better to do cats. So this first picture is of Kris and her heart cat Moose. Moose was a polydactyl and Kris rescued her when she was a tiny kitten, on the edge of death, and had to be bottle fed. Moose, when she was small, got in the habit of sleeping in Kris’s hair and did that every night for 14 years. Not kidding. After Moose…
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23 Years Ago
In a Land Far, Far Away… Dean and Kris had some great times with some friends… Or so the story goes… That’s right, back in the late 1980s and through most of the 1990s, Kris and I used to travel a lot to conferences. In 1992 it got excessive and we went to 26 different ones. By 1997, we had cut way, way back and basically only hit a few big conventions and a couple fun ones. One of the big conventions in August 1997 was the San Antonio World Science Fiction Convention. That’s right, San Antonio in August heat. Late August heat, actually. So it wasn’t the biggest world…
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Blast From The Early Days
Early Freelance Days… The picture below was taken by the great fantasy writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman on Christmas Eve, 1988. Professional writers used to gather in Eugene, OR on Christmas Eve every year and it was a wonderful tradition for a good decade. The tradition started in 1986 and we would start off at my place (and later Kris and my place just outside of town) where I would cook a turkey dinner for everyone. Then we would all drive over to Jerry and Cathy Oltion’s apartment (or later house) to open dollar gifts, then we would drive to Nina’s place to read aloud stories we had written for the…