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Nifty Mug and T-Shirt
2024 Challenge Challenge yourself to average 2,024 words per day for the entire year of 2024. Here is the mug and t-shirt you get for signing up… Full instructions below the pictures. Nifty, huh? And you get both if you join the challenge. Only open until the 5th… Sign up on Teachable. Here are the basic rules… No genre limitations. Rules of Turn-In 1… Every month (or more often if it helps you) you must send me an email giving me your word count. I do not want to know what you are writing, just how much. End of the year we figure it all out. The cost is $600.…
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Write Only For Yourself…
Something I Teach All The Time… The great artist Bob Eggleton put up a post on Facebook tonight. A quote from Andre Malraux the French novelist (among other things he did.). Malraux said, “An artist discovers his genius the day he dares not to please.” I am constantly talking with young writers who are doing a number of things that I try to convince them are not critical. And often deadly. 1… Writing to market. (What is supposedly hot in sales, what you have already done, what others tell you to write.) 2… Write for beta readers or first readers or workshops. Just pretty silly when you stop and think…
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The Myth That Writing is Hard…
I Wrote This in 2009… I have updated it for 2023… It is long but I thought it needed to be said again. And note, this was written before I was doing a blog per day. ————- This myth comes in many forms and has many faces, but let me put it as plainly as I can to start. Myth: To be Good, Writing Must Be Hard. (And it can’t be fun.) Total hogwash, of course, yet it is stunning how many new writers believe this, and how readers, when they bother to think about it, believe the myth as well. And, of course, almost everyone who teaches creative writing…
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Moral Rights
A Friend Reminded Me… That I had not yet talked about moral rights in the Bite-Sized Copyright class. He did not intend to, just sent me a great moral rights topic letter., So I just finished recording that for Monday morning. Basics, but considering most writers don’t even understand copyright or licensing, I had to keep it basic. And nope, will not explain it here. Google is your friend for the basics. It is also in the Copyright Handbook which you should own. Keeping it short this Friday night because after three full days now of my new exercise routine, I am beat up. Tonight I did 4 miles around…
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Two Mentor Spots Open
Been a Year Since I Opened This To Three Writers… Since a number of the writers I was helping in this program from years ago are not writing me as often, I decided to open this back up again for two spots. I really enjoy working closely with writers over the years, but I don’t push myself on them. I am just there to help, answer questions, and point in a certain direction. Often my weekly responses are fairly short if things are going well for the writer. Sometimes I give my kind of advice. (grin) I want each writer to be the writer they want to be. And I…
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Welcome Back!
Time of Great Forgetting Almost Over… So many writers (very few full professionals, but a ton of early professionals) just check out of writing and publishing starting in April and sort of return to writing and publishing in middle-to-late July. Now it has logical reasons. Spring and good weather, family vacations, a ton of other things around the house that just need to be done right now. So all the great intentions of writers in January are just sort of forgotten in April. Also, for early stage writers, the writing and publishing have not hit a level of importance yet to either them, or their family, to push them through.…
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Motivation
Getting Back to Writing… After so much time away because of the eye injury, I am getting uneasy each day if I don’t get back to my writing computer. That is pushing me a lot, remembering the fun of just sitting down and making up a story for myself. And I am pretty much out of the focus on the words because of the injury. Got the computer and screen set so I can just let go again and write stories. Yay. But I also noticed that the challenge is making me more conscious of getting there as well. I still have to be careful to watch my computer time…
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Challenge Starts!!
9 Months Left In The Year! If you get focused, you can get a lot done in the next nine months. And learn a lot and have a lot of new books and products out for readers. That’s what these challenges are all about. Even though I am writing this on the 1st, I won’t start officially counting until after I wake up. Here is how the challenges will work, both half and full. Every week on Monday (My week will be from Monday to Sunday night), I will post my consumable words written here that week on this blog to the right. They will be total from April 1st…
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Against All Odds
I Got #50 Done… I asked Kris to be my back-up. I can’t see all the numbers on the face of the oven, for example, and she helped with that. She was there when I was doing anything with something hot, letting me do it but standing by. She went with me to get potatoes that I had forgotten to buy to help me find them in the store. For those of you who have been reading my last couple posts, #50 is the 50th year I have cooked myself the exact same meal on Thanksgiving. And also, I have a nasty cold that Kris caught at 20Books, which is…
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October 1st…
Coming Up In Three Days… So many, many writers had really bad writing summers. And October first is a chance to save the year. Three months until the end of the year. You can get a lot of writing done in three months. Set a new challenge, focus on some project that will be fun and get you restarted. October 1st is a wonderful date. Wash away all the “I wish I had…” from the spring and summer and just sit down and have fun telling stories. Stupidly enough, it really is that simple. I will follow my own advice and let you know what I am going to do…