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Quick Update On My Word Count…
This is for Kris’s Motivation Challenge… I sat my total high, especially for starting off mostly cold, and with my having to stay focused on my own publishing challenge to hit that in the next six months. I knew it was high. I needed the focus, just as Kris needed the focus when she came up with this challenge. So I am now working on a brand new Cold Poker Gang novel titled at the moment CHECK RAISE. If I was on schedule, I would be around 4,000 words with a 7,000 word goal this week by Sunday night. I am just over 3,000 words, so feeling good about the…
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Learn to Listen…
If You Can Hear Yourself, You Make Better Decisions… This last week I had a decision to make about getting my writing restarted. Kris had come up with this great summer challenge idea to keep her focused on her writing through the summer. It is called the Kris Summer Motivation Challenge and I have written about it a number of times and yes, there still is six spots open. Sign up on Teachable. Information in previous blogs. So my decision as to what to do with the challenge for me was three-sided. 1… Was it too early in the organizing and publishing process to bring the writing back in? 2……
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Write More In the New Year!
FEAR AND PRODUCTIVITY SEMINAR Preparation for the New Year January Seminar January 5th through January 30th Kris and I have been looking forward to doing this for most of the year, but knew that January would be the perfect time. January everyone is excited about the new year and moving forward, making the new year better than the last. So we want to help. And to do that, sometimes all it takes are a few small changes, a focus on a certain mindset, an understanding of what it takes to move past fear and be more productive. That’s what this seminar is all about. It is about craft, publishing, mindset,…
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Quitting is Forever…
Writing and Publishing Can Be Frustrating… But quitting is forever. I honestly have no idea looking back how I made it 51 years in this business. I went over (in a full 9-week class on WMG Teachable) about what I learned from my mentors in 50 years and another class I covered the mistakes I made in 50 years. And I have failed at things in publishing more times than I want to count. I’ve had horrid days and great days. When I am writing, I love it and the feeling of writing. When I am not writing, I wonder why I am not writing. Looking back on that first…
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I Made It…
Not Pretty or In Good Time… But once again this year I finished the Vegas Strong 5K. I had great plans to be in shape, lose weight, and so on over the summer to get ready for this official start of the fall here in Vegas. They really were great plans. Honest. Did not one thing. I am 20 pounds overweight and have not been walking any distance at all except on days we go to basketball games. But at those I eat like a 10-year-old kid. So today was the day of the run (I am not allowed to run because of what happened two years ago when I…
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SUPER GREAT CHALLENGES Questions
And Yes… I Will Be Getting Back to Advanced Magic Bakery… As soon as my brain returns from the Licensing Expo this last week. As I expected, I am beat up, but really happy with the way the Expo went for us. I will talk more about it all in the future with what I can talk about. But some fantastic connections and ideas and possible licenses. Great fun and tiring. But right now there are two days left on the Early Bird discount on the five new SUPER GREAT CHALLENGES. Here are some questions I have been getting about the new challenges… — If you miss, you get the…
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Rules for Each SUPER GREAT CHALLENGE
The Early Bird Special Is Open For One Week… On any of the Super Great challenges, the cost is $600, but if you use the code: EarlyBird You get 20% off. ($480) (And yes, if you miss, you still get $600 credit.) Early Bird sale will last for one week. But if you make any of these new SUPER GREAT challenges, you get the LIFETIME EVERYTHING SUBSCRIPTION worth $10,000. Great challenges. So here are the rules to the new four SUPER GREAT challenges now up on WMG Teachable. —- The Super Great Challenge rules… — Write one short story per week for 52 weeks. — Stories must be minimum of…
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Help With Time of Great Forgetting…
Help Coming if You Take It… This year will be a brutal Time of Great Forgetting for most authors. The cause of these months just vanishing from your writing is distractions. Lots and lots of them. Good weather, family events, graduations, gardening, sports, you name it. Massive distractions away from a great schedule you have been maintaining all winter so far with the writing. And also at the moment we have the head-shaking distraction of the craziness coming out of the US government. You combine that with a desire to cover your head or just run into the garden and it makes this coming few months maybe the worst Time…
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Wow! Have We Done a Lot…
I Swore I Wouldn’t Do Online Classes… Not kidding. I swore I wouldn’t do them. Back before there was anything like Teachable, I was pushed into doing one online class one fall by a group of writers, encouraged by my wife. I swore it would only be one. I honestly did. Kris and I laid out the class and I presented it. Had to create a web site that acted very much like Teachable for the first few years. Then since we had decided for the moment to not do any more in-person classes, I did a few more over that first year. (We brought the in-person classes back at…
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More Challenges for the New Year…
Our Regular Four Challenges Enter the 2025 Holiday Sale… For years now we have had four challenges that writers can jump into at any point during the year and start at any time. — THE GREAT CHALLENGE which is to write and send to me one short story a week. — THE GREAT PUBLISHING CHALLENGE which is to publish one major thing a month. (Collection, novella, or novel.) — THE GREAT NOVELLA CHALLENGE which is to write a new novella every month. — THE GREAT NOVEL CHALLENGE which is to write a new novel every two months. Very few people have tried the novel challenge and only a couple of…