• Brand,  Branding,  Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Fiction Branding… Part 13

    Branding Is Fun!! No clue if any of these branding posts go into any kind of order. I will figure that out down the road if I decide to do something with them. At the moment I am just learning and thinking. I realized a while back that branding a series was fun in a bunch of ways. Ways that hit me where I write and live, actually. I realized this when I found myself doing a “chart” of a brand on a series. (More like a rough spreadsheet.) Not anything for public consumption or a sales tool to a licensee. Just sort of me, for fun, keeping track of…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    We Missed a Great Game Today…

    Aces vs Liberty… Here in Vegas and we have season tickets, but the game started at noon, which meant me getting up around 9 am and leaving at 10 am. Middle of my night, so I had decided to not go and Kris decided to stay home as well and get the video for the new GHOST OF A CHANCE Kickstarter done. (she did and it is really nifty…) So by the time I made it downstairs, Kris had been watching the Aces’ game for a while and from what she said we had been down, then way up, then way down. I watched the last quarter as we could…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  On Writing

    What Is A Weekend?

    A Great Question That Applies to Professional Writers… Kris and I honestly at times don’t know what day of the week it is. For example, tonight, on the way home from the Aces’s game, we ran into a bunch of traffic right near the Art’s District near where we live. Neither one of us could figure out what was going on until finally Kris said, “Oh, it’s first Friday.” First Friday of every month there is a massive arts’ fair in the downtown area. Even though earlier we had done a normal Friday lunch with writers and I had done a webinar that is always late Friday, neither of our…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  On Writing

    She’s Doing It Again…

    Kris Wants to Do Another Challenge for the Summer!! Not kidding. She told me that and for the next three days I asked her if she sure until she got mad at me and said she was  SURE!! It seemed the January challenge and the May challenge really kept her focused on writing first every day, even with all the business stuff she has been dealing with. And it was a lot, let me tell you. Her challenges work like this… She writes a letter to me every day telling me what went on in and around her writing and how many words she got done. I take that letter…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Aces Game…

    The Day Was Dominated By the Game… Left the condo around 3:30 to get to Slice of Vegas pizza in the Mandalay Bay complex… Yes, after three days there for the Expo, I go right back for an Aces game. Great pizza and we made it to our season ticket seats with a lot of time to spare. Place was packed as normal, but even more so with Caitlen Clark being in the building with her team the Fever. The two-time defending world champions Aces made short work of the rookie sensation and her team, but still a fun game to watch. I’m sure Kris will have a post about…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Fifty Years of Mistakes

    And I Am Still Making Them… That, I have come to learn, is part of living. If you are active and working, you keep making mistakes. (Wish that was not the case at times.) Tonight I recorded about thirty minutes (5 videos) of the first week of Learning from 50 Years of Mistakes. Great fun taking a ride back to that first year of college when I was 24 years of age, and what I was doing and how I made a mistake that would cost me 8 years of writing and sales. A single mistake. Eight years. But in those eight years I was married, divorced, married again, got…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  On Writing

    LAST DAY for Writing Restart Challenge with Kris

    Yes, Kris Has Started Another Challenge… You can sign up through today (Friday) and get the first three letters. She had a rough last couple of months writing and surprised me the other day saying she wanted to do a challenge to get herself back focused on fiction writing in May. So I asked her if she wanted to do it the same way she did in January, with a letter every night to those in the challenge and she said yes. So here we are… Spring Restart Writing Challenge with Kris The challenge is to write as many consumable words from Wednesday, May 1st through Friday, May 31st 2024…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Thinking of a Challenge For Myself…

    50 Years Needs to Be Celebrated… Sold my first two short stories 50 years ago this year. Actually I sold them in the late fall of 1974. In May of 1974, I was a head golf professional at a Palm Springs Country Club. I would quit that job in July and head back to college at the University of Idaho in September. Two months later I had sold two short stories and a bunch of poems. So now, 50 years later, I want to celebrate. I did the 50 years of learning from mentors class on Teachable and the 50 years of learning from mistakes will start on May 7th.…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Went to a Ball Game

    Las Vegas Has a Great Ball Park… Modern, minor-league park for the Aviators. Today, our future team, the A’s played an exhibition game there against the Brewers. Stunningly perfect weather, great company with Ron and Lisa and Bridgid. Kris and I had a great time. Looking forward in four years when the new A’s stadium will be done. It will be amazing, typical Vegas. And really looking forward to the new season of the two-time champs Las Vegas Aces firing up. We have season tickets for those games. Picture by Ron Collins of Brigid, Lisa, Kris and me. And by the way, Brigid has a great Kickstarter running right now…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Rock ‘n Roll 5 K

    We Went Into the Crowds.. Beautiful sunny day (unlike last year). Kris ran the entire thing and I walked it. Kris started in the crowd of 5,000 runners, but because of my shoulder and fear of getting bumped, I was the last one to start. Passed a lot of people once things thinned out but walked the entire way. 10K and Half Marathon are tomorrow and I am not going. Shoulder is just not ready yet for that kind of punishment, so like I did for 5 years in Lincoln City, resetting for next year. I did run the half marathon five times over the last five years once we…