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More On Dean Challenges
Some Great Questions This Weekend… Main question is that if I go past a million words, does that mean anyone in the challenge must as well? Nope. If I write past a million words (love how you guys are worried about that while I am worried with the eyes of just getting close to that number), the challenge is capped at one million. So the full folks need to write that much, the half need to write 500,000 words. If I do 800,000 words, that is the mark for the full and 400,000 is for the half. I will be reporting every week on both challenges with a video. Every…
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Learning In Writing
Not Like Other Skills… This came from a fun conversation with other writers today at lunch. When you learn something in fiction writing, you can’t just take that learning and apply it like learning how to fix a pipe or do something in Photoshop. I wish sometimes it worked that way, but alas it does not. So when you learn something from a writing book, or another writer’s work, or a workshop like we teach, you must do your best to understand it while learning it, then go back to writing and forget what you learned. That’s right, forget it. When you learn something about a craft area of writing,…
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Update to Award On the Full Challenge
Got Some Questions About the Awards… On the full challenge, if you get past whatever I write or anywhere near a million words in the nine months (no matter how much I write if I write more than a million), then you get your choice of a Lifetime Subscription. But if the Lifetime Subscription doesn’t interest you, or you already have it, you could get something like a full year of the Advanced Craft Classes (going to be doing six more in 2024.) Or one of the year-long subscriptions that has a price about the same as a lifetime subscription. (We will do another of those in 2024 as well…
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Dean Challenges… Two of them…
Both a Full and a Half Challenge… Last night I mentioned I was thinking about doing a challenge for anyone who wanted to try to match or beat the number of consumable words I wrote from April 1st 2023 until December 31st, 2023. Nine months. I said what I hoped to hit, but of course that is just the plan and we all know how plans go. (grin) But I also suggested that I would set up a challenge for anyone who wanted to try to match me. A challenge similar to the other challenges already there. And a couple people thought they could keep up or beat me, which…
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Some AI Opinions
Watching AI Like Everyone Else… And getting a ton of questions about the different aspects of AI as it applies to writing and the Indie world of publishing. So let me give you my opinions on the three areas right now here in February 2023. This will date quickly I am sure. So if you read this six months from now, I hope to do another update about then. AI Audio… It is here, pretty amazingly good, and getting better by the day. And numbers of companies are jumping on board (I know of at least three major.) As always, read the terms of service. I see no reason not…
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Diving Universe Kickstarter Doing Well!
Launched at Noon on Tuesday… So as I write this, it is less than two days and it is about to hit the second stretch goal and trigger the new series of workshops that will be on Teachable. To say that Kris and I are excited to teach some basic concepts and tropes of science fiction with the help of Rocket-Fuel Rachel and Space-Cowboy Pete would be an understatement. That is going to be so much fun. And got a hunch those two will be around in different genres and in different forms in different classes. So back the Kickstarter, get Kris’s wonderful new Diving Novel called COURT MARTIAL OF…
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Derivative Rights in Bite-Sized Copyright
Talking Derivative Rights for Next Three Weeks… That’s right, for those of you who think you know copyright, or are planning to learn it any day now, it is going to take me three full weeks of Bite-Sized Copyright class to just do the basics on derivative rights. And you can’t understand licensing anything unless you understand how derivative rights work first. Bite-Sized Copyright class has no assignments, so it fits with just about anything. You just get the videos every Monday morning every week for the full year. Yes, you can take it quarter by quarter and all the first weeks remain, so you can catch up on your…
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Great New Workshops Available!!
In-Person Workshops, Study Along Workshops, Novella Add-Ons, and the Special Fey Workshop… That’s right, all available now and up on Teachable… FEY SPECIAL WORKSHOP… Those of you who got this in the Fey Kickstarters, the code to get into it will be sent out early next week. It is on the first page of Teachable and it takes the 11 videos Kris did in Lessons from the Fey and adds a lot more videos by me to it. I will dig down into the why of what happened, the writing ways Kris managed to keep going, and so much more about publishing and surviving as a long-term professional. This might…
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Only Talking Valuation…
Not What You Do With It… I was not talking estates, or taxes, or Thor Power Tools… (Don’t ask.) You need to at least begin to understand valuation before you get to estates, taxes, or selling your catalog of copyright. So I was only talking about some basics of valuation. What you do with the valuation is up to you. SOME POINTS… All catalogs, no matter the size, will have a valuation. I know early stage writers and publishers think none of this is important, just as they believe copyright is something to learn down the road. And even more scary, even some long-term professional writers don’t understand the value…
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Resurrected Classic Workshops
FOR ONE MONTH ONLY!! Since numbers of writers have asked about how to get feedback on assignments in workshops that are now Classic Workshops and there just wasn’t a way (Until now.) Kris and I and Allyson got talking about figuring out a way to bring back one or two Classic Workshops per month, for one month only, and I would treat that workshop like a regular workshop that month. In other words, I would respond to the homework of that workshop. The class itself will still be in the Classic Workshops, and I will not respond to that, but we will put up the class with the Orange Regular…