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New Poker Boy Story…
Published Today… Monday… In the WMG 2020 Holiday Spectacular. That’s right my story “Hidden Box Inn and Casino” is the Monday, December 14th story in the Spectacular. It’s a Poker Boy story and the newest. And it’s a holiday story, but not what you would think of as a normal holiday story. After all, it is Poker Boy. Here is what Kris said in the introduction to my story. (She writes an introduction to every story.) Hidden Box Inn and Casino by Dean Wesley Smith Genre/Mood: Light and fun fantasy After one of our bleakest stories, here’s one of our most fun stories. Dean Wesley Smith is a co-mastermind of…
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Went Running…
Well, Sort of… Kris and I and Lisa did a live, in-person race this morning. One of the few the state has allowed to happen. We went out in 25 person waves every thirty minutes, and even inside each wave we were spread apart. Very safe. Beautiful day, sunny, in the 60s. Typical Vegas December day. I managed to run just over a mile of the three miles, walked the rest. Not exercising much for three weeks since the marathon and still slightly sore feet made this an easy one. Kris beat me by a long ways and she’s nursing a sore knee. And I think Lisa tied her best…
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Working On A Story…
Watching a Couple of Movies… So I am behind on email and will get caught up tomorrow after we do a 5k charity run. My feet are back healthy as they will ever be, so it will feel good to be back out. Plus we had two charity runs scheduled for tomorrow, but one was forced virtual. The one we are doing has groups of 25 going off (spaced out) every thirty minutes. Masks required and gladly worn. I am sure there will be pictures. I’m going to use tomorrow to ramp back up my amount of steps per day. I am doing a bit of muscle work as well,…
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Finding Stories
Not to Write… But Already Written… When you are as prolific as I am, and combine that with just enjoying the writing, not caring about the publishing that much, you end up with strange things happening. I know that those writers who think everything they write is golden have trouble understanding this concept, but I flat lose stories. Smith’s Monthly Magazine, when I started it, was supposed to be a place where I could slowly, over years, gather all my stories together, one novel and four or five short stories per issue. And I did that for 44 issues just fine until life roles stopped the process. Now I am…
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I Have Books In Three Bundles…
At The Same Time… This Never Happens… I am usually happy to be in a bundle every three months or so. So folks, if you want to get some amazing reading by other authors, and get four of my books, (And four of Kris’s books) now is the time to grab all three bundles. A couple of them are vanishing fairly soon, so don’t miss them. Here are descriptions and pictures and links of all three bundles. In the www.StoryBundle.com/Crime I have a Cold Poker Gang novel BAD BEAT, and I have a collection of best crime stories from Pulphouse Magazine that I edited called Twist of a Knife. Plus…
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A Challenge For Everyone for 2021…
My Challenge of 70 While I Am 70 Pushes Me… So I got a comment about structuring a short story publishing challenge for 2021 for others, especially writers just starting out. And I think it’s a great idea for a bunch of reasons for most writers. So I thought I would go into the reasons and the idea here. Challenge: Publish 52 Short Stories Stand Alone In 2021 Note, I did not say write, I said PUBLISH. Stories would have to be stand-alone, most selling for $2.99 electronic and $4.99 paper. (Under 3,000 words sell it for $1.99… never 99 cents.) A lot of writers I know have collections published…
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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…