• 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…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Kickstarter Campaign

    HEARTS COLLIDE Kickstarter is Live!!

    100 Strange Romance Short Stories… Half from Kris, half from Dean. These are all genres, but all have the underlying theme of romance in one form or another. All are strange, as is typical of Dean and Kris’s writing. Plus you can get previous year’s anthologies or all 420 stories if you want. Plus a ton of other reading and two very special workshops for writers. HEARTS COLLIDE Make 100 Kickstarter. Check it out. (ADDED NOTE… We funded in just over an hour and as I type this are well on the way to the first stretch goal.) Watch the video of me and Kris. (might have to click twice…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Kickstarter Campaign

    HEARTS COLLIDE Kickstarter

    Launches at Noon on Tuesday!! Five Volumes of 100 short stories, half by Kris, half by me. We are calling these stories our “strange romances” because trust me, they are not regular romances. And you all know me, I write across genres, so these are science fiction, fantasy, mystery and so on, all with a romantic element. It’s the romantic element in all 100 stories that hold these volumes together. This is the fourth year of Kris and I doing these 100 story volumes for the Make 100 promotion in Kickstarter. And just as with the three years before, we have some great fun stuff with this one. In fact,…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Kris and Cheeps Baking…

    Actually Mostly Kris… But Cheeps stayed close the entire time as moral support. And he likes the smell of pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread, even though he will never get any of it. Kris got her writing done today, ran three miles, cooked dinner, and then made four pumpkin pies and two loaves of pumpkin bread. Wow, what a day. Tomorrow I cook turkey. Have a great holiday, everyone…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  On Writing

    Sometimes Just Take a Day Off…

    So It Is Christmas Eve… I have no plans to take any time away from my office, mostly because after this last fall, I am just so far behind, and I want to be ready to get writing solidly into the new year. But even with that, I watched a holiday movie tonight before heading up here again. I doubt that Kris will take any time off either. She has sent out six updates on her challenge Sprint to 2024 and she is really enjoying the writing. But as two professional writers, we will spend some holiday time together, including a turkey meal (sort of taking the place of our…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    31 Years Married!

    Sickness and Health Tends to Go In Waves… This last year was my turn to have issues, from being mostly blind for three months to smashing my shoulder while running too fast and getting a Titanium replacement. Kris had the duty of taking care of so much more than normal this year. So thanks, Kris for the great 31 years of marriage so far (even though we celebrate when we met in May which will be 38 years), I want to remember that great wedding day on the top of the hill on our tree farm, us bundled in our ski parkas. We got married amid the uncut Christmas trees…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    2023 Good Cheer StoryBundle!

    All Short Stories This Year! And a lot of them. We figured we all might now have time to read holiday novels, but always time here and there for a holiday short story or two. Here is Kris explaining the project and the books of stories included. This is a really fun one, folks! —– The 2023 Good Cheer Bundle – Curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch The holiday season goes by so very fast. I always have a dozen books lined up to read, filled with holiday stories to make me smile—or, in some cases, grimace. I do holiday charity runs, look at some of the free holiday events here…