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A Really Pointed and Fun and Funny Book
Judge Bubba’s Christmas Letters. I mentioned this book last year and wanted to suggest it again this year because you will not only feel good reading these Christmas letters, but laugh and identify with much of it. Basically, you know the typical form letter you get from family or friends at Christmas? Well, these ain’t nothing close to typical. Judge Bubba decided the standard Christmas letter might be a little staid, so instead of polishing up and ignoring the funny or bad stuff of the year, he just puts it out there in a sort of story. Actually, a really funny story. Every year for twenty-one years. And this book…
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Nifty Resource for Covers
14 Tools for Making Book Covers… Nate at the Digital Reader just did a post on 14 sites for helping with making covers. Some of them make the 3d covers. I know some of you here are still paying far too much to have covers made. Time to dig in to a learning curve and start doing your own. In case anyone is interested, I do covers in InDesign with some help from Photoshop. If you go to Lynda.com you can get tutorials on how to learn either of those programs. But the article has some easier methods than what we use here. Worth a look, especially if you want…
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Major New Writing Bundle!
Fantastic Writing Books and Discounts… Wow, Kris has put together one of the most amazing bundles to help writers I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of. And AbleGamers is the charity on this bundle, which is one of the best causes I have ever seen. So instead of me going on here about this, let me use Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s words to explain it all and her thinking on how this all went together. Take it away, Kris… ————– The Write Stuff 2017 After a long day at work, consumers want one of two things: they want entertainment or they want escape. Entertaining fiction provides a great escape,…
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Some Pulp Writers
Some Fun Names and Facts… Since it was asked about talking about the old pulp writers and how some people liked that, I thought I would do a quick post on just a few of the writers who wrote a book a week for years at a time. Yup, a book a week. For years. British writers this post. There were numbers of US writers as well, but the British during the final years of the pulp era and the start of the paperback era had some amazing writers working down in the trenches. (1948 to 1955 or so) So I did some quick research of names I knew (and…
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A Friday Night Cat Picture
A Great Cat… This is a wonderful picture of our beautiful little girl cat, Ella. Couldn’t think of anything else to post tonight.
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Time to Rest… Blast from the Past
All Good Intentions… I spent all day in meetings, then working at my computer at work doing workshop stuff, then home at this computer and then reading. I rested my eye regularly, but still too tired in the eye to write much tonight or read much more. So the planned blog is replaced by this placeholder so I can keep my streak alive. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, how about a blast from the past on this Thursday? In this picture from the 1960 World Science Fiction Convention taken by Jay Kay Klein, Ron Ellik, Randall Garrett, Mark Irwin, Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, Dirce Archer, and James Blish watch BJo…
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The Years Go By
A Great Picture… Not sure where it was taken recently. At one convention or another, but it came across Facebook and I was stunned at what a great picture it was of four of the greatest writers in science fiction. And how we had all aged. (We all used to look young, honest.) David Brin (on the right) is almost exactly my age. Greg Bear (on the left) is a year younger. Vernor Vinge in the blue jacket is six years older than me and Gregory Benford is nine years older than I am. And they all started publishing in the middle to late 1960s except for David who started…
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Superstars Workshop
Going Back for the Third Time… I wanted to announce that in the first week of February 2018, I will be once again teaching at the Superstars Writing Conference. I will also be going in a day ahead to do one of their craft days as well. I’ll talk more about this over the year, of course. But so far confirmed for next year are Brandon Sanderson, Jonathan Maberry, Jim Butcher, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, James A. Owen, Mark Leslie Lefebvre (Kobo), Dave Farland, and Mark Coker (Smashwords). Should be great fun.
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Nifty Bundle from BundleRabbit
The Haunted Bundle… In case you folks are not familiar with Bundlerabbit, you should be. They are doing some really interesting new things. Get on their mailing list for some amazing deals from top writers. I am part of a bundle there called the Haunted Bundle. You can buy the bundle not only through Bundlerabbit, but through Kobo, Amazon, and other places. Nifty, huh? Twenty stories. Kris has a story in the bundle as well. (The story I have in the bundle is a “Ghost of a Chance” story that originally appeared in Stories from July.) One nifty feature of the site is go to the location of the bundle…
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A Writer in the Air
LAS VEGAS FUN… Las Vegas is a ton of fun. Not only did I write an entire novel while there, but I also enjoyed time with my friends. First photo is looking back at the six blocks. I am on the left. Second photo is me getting closer to the landing. The third picture is me and my friend Lenny hanging over the landing pads. That will give you an idea about the video below. The video is a short version of my flight on the Slotzilla zipline in downtown Las Vegas from the viewpoint of that helmet cam I was wearing. Short version means I cut out all the…