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Bet You Didn’t Know I Wrote YA
I Have For Most of My Writing Career… My very first published young adult novel was an Iron Man novel. It was called, if I remember right, Steel Terror. Part of a series one publisher was doing back in the early 1990s in conjunction with Marvel. I had fun writing it, but the series died and that was it. Over the years I wrote a few other young adult novels and stories here and there. But I have two ya novels that were in Smith’s Monthly, first as a serial, then as stand-alone novels. Now, you can get one of those novels in a nifty Storybundle called THE LIGHT IN…
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The Attitude of a Challenge
A Lot Like What Is Needed To Write A Novel… Since I have been talking about the challenges the last two nights, and I got some great letters today from a few brave souls who are interested, I thought I would go over in general the attitude it takes to do a challenge like these. First off, you can never consider the writing “work” in any regard. Writing is play, what you come home from work to do. So part of the attitude about these challenges (or just writing in general) is take the word “work” away from it. You do the best you can and release and move on.…
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Some More Challenge Details
A Few More Details… For those interested in the challenges I announced last night, here are a few more details about them. Still lots of room in both challenges. First I want to stress the point of this is to help writers and have fun and get some novels and stories done. I also function as a form of cheerleader along the way to help you keep going. — For the novel challenge, you can start writing in September as long as you have no more than 50% of the novel done before October. — Short story challenge only goes two months, but the novel challenge goes to January 15th…
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New Story and Novel Challenge For You
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 basically done with all the reading from the summer challenges I did. Those challenges were simple and turned out to be fun for me. And the writers who participated said it challenged them to get writing done they might not have gotten done. And they all got the workshops. That was the idea. Push the writing and get me reading your work and also get workshops out of it. So I looked at my schedule for the next year and realized the only chance I…
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Almost Forgot
Got Busy Reading… Over four years of putting something here every day and tonight I actually was headed for bed when I remembered to put up this blog. Just been finishing up the reading for the challenges from the summer. Wonderful fun. For those of you in Florida, hang in there. The entire country is thinking of you and watching in horror. Some announcements tomorrow night. Until then…
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Dr. Jerry Pournelle
Jerry left us yesterday… I have actually known Jerry Pournelle since 1982, which seems like an impossible amount of time. We were not close, so no need to feel bad for me because of his passing. Give your thoughts to his family and very close friends. They are hurting today. For me, as I assume for many others, Jerry Pournelle was one of those who always seemed to be there in the science fiction world, and I have many, many interesting memories with Jerry. Actually, early on I only knew him as another professional writer and I sat on many panels with him. We didn’t agree about much of anything,…
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Short Fiction Living Post Coming
I Have Promised… Since I’ve been working on some short stories for Smith’s Monthly, I was reminded about my old making-a-living posts. Over the years I have done periodic posts about how it is possible in this new world to make a living at writing short fiction only. That belief hasn’t changed. Math hasn’t changed much either. So I’ll update that next week for 2017. Stay tuned. It seems to always be a popular post in different ways. (grin) Challenges This summer I did some challenges with writers to write either 30 short stories in 30 or 60 days and/or also three novels in three months. If they did they…
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Some Online Workshop Information
Some General Updates… Over the next month or so I will be finishing moving all the of the classic workshops over to Teachable. Right now there are about four or five there now. And I will redo the Curriculum for the workshops to add in the new ones we have done this spring and summer. In the meantime, October, November and December workshops are listed. I have some To Be Announced slots over the next three monhts, but not sure if we will fill those or not. In September five of the twelve offered workshops has no one in it. And not even the new workshop filled. So got a…
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A Great Crew
Working Well… Today, because it was the day after a major holiday, I needed to stop by the offices and north store for a few errands. So Kris and I headed up there in the middle of the afternoon. A new store manager was being trained there today because Josh is moving to the computer side of everything. And Allyson and her publishing crew were going great guns, all smoothly and without stress. The new bookstore is doing great, with Dan making fantastic progress getting a thousand details set up, and of course Billy at our flagship store is on full steam, since we are still coming out of the…
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A Matter of Perspective
How I Feel Every Time… To the best of my knowledge, I did 106 books for traditional publishers, ending in 2008. At that point, as I have said numbers of times, I was tired of publishing, tired of the worsening contracts and the horrid attitudes of editors. I was disgusted by the system and the corruptness. And I got really tired of watching the system chew up not only friends, but new writers. In other words, I was finished. Indie publishing saved me. I could control my own copyediting, my own covers, and retain ownership of my copyrights. Plus I didn’t have to feel like a beggar with a tin…