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Tossed Out A Book…
Strunk and White… The Elements of Style… Yup, tossed it without hesitation into a garbage can. And I own a bookstore and never toss away books. But that book is so evil to fiction writers, I felt dirty even touching it. I was cleaning and packing Kris and my nonfiction library to bring some of the books to Vegas last week. There, tucked between two other books and hiding on a lower shelf was a copy of the book of evil. I saw it, grabbed it and without a thought flipped it into a garbage can. Why? Because that book can do more damage to a writer’s voice than pretending…
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Tip of the Week Delayed Until Friday
Stupid Blog Title, Huh?… But alas, I won’t be able to record a new tip until Friday, so a new one on Friday and then another on Monday. Then back on schedule. Considering all this move stuff, pretty amazing I have only missed one so far. Insider Guide workshops started up today. The Game and Fear. Both will have weekly webinars. Trust me on the Game. It will change your focus of your business. Doing three pen names through ten years of careers will make that happen. And on Tuesday and Wednesday the Monthly regular June workshops are starting up. As for what I did today, I unpacked a bunch…
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June Workshops Starting
Insider’s Guide Workshops… Both of the new workshops, The Indie Game and Fear are starting tomorrow. Sunday. The first week’s videos will appear in both tomorrow afternoon and the first webinars will be a week from tomorrow for both. We did both workshops originally as the weekend workshops. We are not changing out the videos because other than a mention of a day instead of a week, the teaching is fine in them. And the live webinars will really add to the learning. Sign up on Teachable at www.wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures@teachable.com. ————————- Also starting on Tuesday and Wednesday… June Regular Workshops All twelve June Regular six-week workshops are now available on Teachable…
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Only You Can Kill Your Writing
Seriously, You Can’t Fail At Writing Unless You Quit Writing… That’s why I called those twenty items in yesterday’s blog tombstones. They mark the moment a writer stops writing. The reason for the death of the dream. And it is always the writer who makes the decision to quit. The failure is always self-inflicted. But today I got some wonderful comments and private letters about how many of you have made it through some of these death markers. And that is fantastic and each letter and comment made me smile. Because few do make it through. How to you get through all the traps that can kill your writing? First,…
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The Many Deaths of a Fiction Writer
A Sort of Look At Tombstone Markers… I’ve been thinking about trying this post for a year or more now, but this last news about the agent ripping off 3.4 million from writers (at least) brought this back to the front. So I’m going to try it. The idea is simple. From my position of being around for 40 years, liking to watch other writer’s careers, and editing and teaching and interacting with writers now for over thirty years, I have seen what flat kills writer’s careers. They are always, and I repeat always, self-inflicted wounds. And one note before I dive into this. Those of us who have survived…
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Last Day
Special Time of Great Forgetting Offer Extended… Today is the last day… The reason for this short extension is that I got busy and forgot to warn everyone the offer was ending when it ended this weekend. So we’re going to extend it just two days and today is the second of those two days. Here is the offer: Two Regular Workshops and Two Classic Workshops for $500.00 total. You can keep them as credits until you use them, be we hope you use a few of them in the next few months to fight back the Time of Great Forgetting. You will be happy you did when you hit…
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Just A Few Thoughts…
The Agent Theft News Has Me Thinking… I am sitting here in a beautiful condo high over the city of Las Vegas, staring at this screen on my little iPad and wondering where I would be if I hadn’t fired my agents and then found this new world of Indie Publishing. I might be here in Vegas somewhere, but I would not be writing. Of that I have no doubt. I was fed up with all the crap with agents and baby editors and lack of respect. I was done with writing and always hurrying up to hit some deadline or another then only to wait until someone got around…
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Slight Extension
Special Time of Great Forgetting Offer Extended… Just two days… The reason is that I got busy and forgot to warn everyone the offer was ending when it ended this weekend. So we’re going to extend it just two days. Here is the offer: Two Regular Workshops and Two Classic Workshops for $500.00 total. You can keep them as credits until you use them, be we hope you use a few of them in the next few months to fight back the Time of Great Forgetting. You will be happy you did when you hit August and September and are trying to restart. So to be clear. — Two regular…
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Very Tempted…
To Say I Told You So… But that would be petty. (Grin) Yes, this is a post about book agents. You see, for the last decade or more I have been trying my best to talk sense into normally very intelligent people when it comes to agents. But the myth is so powerful that really smart people do the stupidest things when the word “agent” is mentioned in publishing. Example… Writers allow agents to tell them how to write a novel, even though the agent has never written a novel in their life. Yet writers will rewrite and rewrite to try to please some agent, spending years of time. Example……
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Tough Life…
A Fun Day and a Lot Of Work… I moved a van load of books and shelves from the UHaul which is parked in a casino parking lot under security. (Can’t get the UHaul even close to the condo, which is why we are doing it this way. One more van load tomorrow morning and we are done.) Then I had two fun webinars that everyone seemed very low-key on. Holiday I suppose. Then Kris and I spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening, working with shelving and books and had a great dinner along the way. Yup, I ache in places I didn’t know I had yesterday…