• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Took Lots of Naps

    Everyone Thinks I Am So Busy… And sometimes I am. Sometimes, I just putter through the day, going out to the stores, doing some workshop stuff, cooking dinner, taking a nap, doing some reading, taking a nap, watching television, doing more reading. I think there was another nap in there somewhere. And that was the day. Not sick, so nothing to worry about. Just getting caught up and taking it easy at the moment. And I wouldn’t even be posting here about today if I didn’t have this running streak of days posting. (grin) —————- Ghosting Novels Over the last few days I have gotten the same basic question twice.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Smiths Monthly

    Patreon Post Up

    Just Reposted #43 and Put Up New #44 of Smith’s Monthly… I wanted to take down the first posting of Smith’s Monthly #43 I put up a few months ago and repost it to the public on Patreon. I haven’t done a public post there yet, so I figured doing that would allow my Patreon supporters to have a month or so to read it before it went public. Then right behind that I put up Smith’s Monthly #44 for just supporters. I figured that now that Patreon has backed off its stupidity on the fees, it was time to get back in the game. Thank you to all of those…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    A Nifty Christmas Video and Bundle

    Day 1,570 of Daily Blogs Without Missing… Now that’s a stunner, huh? Every day, through internet crashes, trips, sickness, and nothing to say, I have been here typing something every night. Sort of like a bad faucet you can’t get a plumber to fix. Just keeps on dripping. (grin) ————– Got a nifty Christmas books video from WMG Publishing I wanted to share. Kris did a draft of this last year, then Gwyneth updated it for this year. Plus, I got a great bundle going on right now that is all Christmas books. It’s called Christmas Cheer bundle with Storybundle that I curated. Not one, not two, but three of the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Some Time Off And Other Stuff

    Usually Don’t Need Time Off… Mostly because what I do is not really work in any form. Sure, it’s tiring at times, but I get to write as much as I want, work with other writers in workshops to help them advance, and play with collectables. Nope, not work. This last three or four weeks have been pretty nonstop, so I just decided today to stop for a bit, do something slightly different just to break the routine. I headed into the valley to do some picking by myself. Took my time getting back. Nap, cooked dinner, watched The Voice, another nap, did a few assignments I hadn’t gotten done…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Writing Focused Tonight

    Getting Rested and Working On Starting Novels… What I do to get ready to start novels is actually clean the area around my writing computer. When writing I have yellow legal pads and sticky notes and books scattered everywhere around me. So when I go a time (like the last few weeks) without writing and then are ready to go back, I clean up. Sort of telling my mind it’s time to get back to playing. So that felt good tonight after doing the assignments for the workshop. No idea what I will write, but my little voice kinda wants to write a Cold Poker Gang mystery. No idea why.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Back At The Store for the Third Day

    And Once Again I Had a Blast… Spent from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. at the store, mostly talking with people. The rock shop owner across the parking lot outed me as a writer to a few really nice young people who were science fiction fans. It was a joy to talk with them, actually, because they were fans of reading. Kris showed up on her walk after a time and they got to talk with her as well. Really nice people. They had no idea who we were actually, but they were sf fans and loved Star Trek and Star Wars. I headed back to my office at WMG…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Once Again At the Store

    Had a Blast… Spent from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. at the store, mostly talking with people and buying comics from people bringing them through the door. Great fun. Then off to dinner for a birthday of a friend, then back to the office to work on workshops. Then home to keep working on stuff here, including putting the final table of contents together for Issue #1 of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. Paper copies of Issue #0 should be shipping as soon as they get here. I am very proud of how the magazine is shaping up. Great fun for me, and I hope the reading is fun as well. ————–…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Ran the South Store for a Time Today

    Tough Getting Up at Noon When I Saw Seven A.M…. And the store was deadly slow. So got lots of talking in with the owner of the small mall and with Dan who runs our bookstore which is across the parking lot from the store I was watching. It feels good to actually be out there seeing how things are running instead of just checking in a few times a week. I don’t need to do this, but I thought it would be fun, except for the lack-of-sleep part. Then I headed back to my office at the WMG offices and except going home to cook dinner, was in the…

  • On Writing,  publishing

    Christmas Cheer Bundle

    THE CHRISTMAS CHEER BUNDLE! For me, great stories and Christmas Holidays go hand-in-hand. I used to buy myself books for Christmas, and Christmas vacation was always a time I got to do the most reading when I was growing up. Then when I started writing, a friend and I challenged each other to write six Christmas short stories in seven days and put them in a little chapbook for our friends as gifts. We did that every year for years, cementing in my mind that Christmas meant stories. After I met Kristine Kathryn Rusch, she and I and a bunch of other professional writers would get together every Christmas Eve…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Went Picking Today

    Not a Great Day for Picking, but Not Bad Either… I actually spent half the time in the place today in Salem on my phone on eBay looking up German and French and British vintage china to see what prices I could get for it on eBay. (For some reason there was a lot of it.) Found some really nice stuff, not sets, just parts, but the entire cost of the dishes I did find was $2.42 cents (not a typo) and I bet we will list and sell most of that china for well over two hundred bucks. Now that’s a mark-up. (grin) So a fun afternoon to break…