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Lightening, No Internet, Power Flickering
Great Storms Rolling Over… So this is a quick one while the power is still up and I can use my phone as a hot spot for the internet. Smith’s Monthly subscribers and Patreon supporters should have an issue of Smith’s Monthly yesterday. If not and you think you should have, write me. Challenges still have a spot or two left. —————- I’ve been surprised there hasn’t been more interest in this young adult bundle. It has some amazing books and writers in it. The book I have in this new bundle is a pure western young adult called The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy. I hope this winter…
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Issue of Smith’s Monthly Going Out
ACTUALLY THREE ISSUES OVER THE NEXT WEEK… Yup, slowly getting back on track. Got a ways to go yet, but getting closer. I would like to be back on track by issue #50. (And yes, when I think about filling my own magazine with 50 novels and over two hundred short stories and other stuff for over four years, I sort of shake my head as well.) But we shall see. I have some writing to do that’s for sure. (grin) But at the moment, subscribers and Patreon supporters will be getting three issues over the next week or so. Today was a fun day up at the office because…
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Coast Mystery Workshop Started
Writers in the Back Room… Tonight at 7 p.m., a bunch of writers from around the country gathered in the meeting room in the WMG offices for a mystery workshop taught by Kris. Looks like a great group and I got to spend about thirty minutes with them before Kris kicked me out and into my office where I worked on Writing into the Dark online workshop. Speaking of coast workshops, a few openings in the Master Class starting on October 21st because of a few cancellations. And also there are three spots in the Anthology workshop in late Feb. If interested, write me. They are invite workshops, but only…
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Crashing Early On a Friday
Been Going Steadily All Day… Took out about forty Black Cat Magazines from 1895 to 1900 for Billy at Pop Culture to sell. That was fun. They are very rare and mostly in fantastic condition. They are a digest-sized magazine that Kris and I have had for a very long time and neither of us have any reason to ever look at them. So off they go. Then I worked up at the office the rest of the afternoon and then home to do email and other stuff all evening. Got a few more brave souls signed up on the challenges starting in October, but still room. Any questions, feel…
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Time Is Everything These Days
Working on An Issue of Smith’s Monthly… And I had so many things that sort of crowded ahead of it that I didn’t get it done tonight and turned in as I had told Allyson I would at WMG. Now she won’t be surprised, but I am disappointed in myself to be honest. I wanted to get that done and I might still make a run at it still tonight if I have a little energy. But in this modern world time is always a key for writers. We never have enough time and thus important things get shoved aside in the waves of stuff that happens every day. And…
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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…