-
A Really Fun Movie
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle… Might be one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. Kris and I, after a long WMG meeting, headed into the valley to get me a Mac keyboard for my large iPad Plus. Then I went picking while she did some reading, then a nice dinner and then a late movie. After the movie Kris sat and read while I tore apart two standees for decoration at our north store. So a really fun evening and night, capped by the movie. We saw the original Robin Williams movie and remembered not being that impressed by it. But trust me folks, this…
-
A Few Words About Starting
Go Slow… Due to the fact that I only have so much computer time I can use because of my one good eye and the fact that I was spending most of the computer time over the last month plus moving workshops to Teachable, I haven’t done much writing. Normal for me, since I tend to start and stop a lot over a year and still manage to get a lot of words and books done. So I am very, very good at starting up. And I know a lot of you reading this are starting up again this week, either as a New Year’s resolution or after time away…
-
First Day, Last Day
First Day of a New Year… And the last days to get into both the short story and novel challenges and the Promotions Package. Hope everyone is getting off to a good start today. I sure did. After watching the ball drop and then one or two songs afterwards, I went into my office, sat down at my writing desk, and fired up on a new novel. The novel is called MARBLE GRANT and I wrote the prologue to it tonight plus some more. Fun to be back at it. LAST DAY TO SIGN UP FOR THE STORY CHALLENGE? There are still two spots open in the novel challenge starting…
-
Needed Some Exercise
So I Dug Into the Bookstore Back Room Again… The back room at the bookstore is where we hope to expand into a new public area to get more room for books. But when we bought it, the place was buried in boxes and trash. Basically it looked like a hoarding place like my friend Bill’s home and apartment that I cleaned out. I have been slowly, when I needed some exercise like today, been working through it. And even more fun is the back room has almost as many treasures per square foot as Bill’s places. Today I found an entire box of rare and antique perfume bottles, some…
-
Finishing Up Short Story Challenge Reading
And Writing Up Comments… I also did a bunch of work on Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #1 besides reading and typing up my comments back to the writers in the short story challenge. I also allowed myself to take a long nap, meaning almost two hours tonight. Guess I needed it. I had a meeting up at WMG with the the crew there to get approval for my crazy idea I will announce on Monday. I had to get their approval and feedback on some things before I could even do this, since they have to do a bunch of the work on the idea. This will add into the 67…
-
Setting Up Challenges for 2018
Been Working on Planning… I ended up driving to Salem this afternoon to get a couple standees from a theater there, but the place was so busy, the manager and I decided to do it next week instead since tearing them apart makes a mess in part of their lobby. Wow, what a zoo that theater was. But I ended up doing a bunch of picking and got some pretty cool stuff. And the drive allowed me to do a lot of thinking about how I want to handle the 2018 goals and challenges. So all good. My main challenges are the two 67 Challenges. I will be doing some…
-
Getting Ready for 2018
Sort of a Look Forward… A Really Long Post Part of this is new, part of this is an older post from 2012 that I thought still made sense today. So once again, the way back machine strikes again. Every time I do this post, or talk with writers at the end of the year, I hear goals being set that are seemingly impossible when you do the math. I’ve set a few of them myself, to be honest, over the decades. I honestly have no problem at all with impossible goals. None, as long as the person setting the goal understands that the likely failure can also be deemed…
-
Want to Be Challenged Into the New Year?
I Am That Crazy… I am going to do it again. I am offering to be a first reader for some of you. I am still just finishing up the reading for the short story challenge that ended at the end of November and the writers are still working on novels until January 15th, but that means I will have time to read again starting January 1st. What a great way to be motivated starting the new year. The first two times I did this, the challenges turned out to be fun for me. And the writers who participated said it challenged them to get writing done they might not…
-
Promotional Package Opened For Five More Days
JUST FIVE MORE DAYS… I got a few letters about this from people who had missed it because of the holidays and Kris mentioned that she thought a number of people had missed it because we closed it off before the holiday. So we talked with Allyson and she and the staff at WMG Publishing agreed to open it for five more writers or the 1st of the year, whichever comes first. Then they want to get planning. So those of you signed up already, expect the first questionnaire tomorrow night from me. Anyone who might want to sign up, details are below. Questions, write me. Five writers or five…
-
New Classic Workshop Now Available
There Are Now Ten of Them… That’s right, over the holiday I finally managed to get Writing Thrillers Classic Workshop up and on Teachable. Classic Workshops are workshops that used to be Regular Workshops at one point or another. The information is still good, but we moved them to classic to get them out of the monthly rotation. They cost $150 and there are six weeks of videos. And there are assignments, but you only do them for yourself. You do not turn them into me. Another difference from Regular Workshops is that you can go through the Classic Workshops at any point, all six weeks as fast or as…