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Learning is Attitude
Learning is Attitude Tonight, for the third night in a row, the storm hit again. Flooding all over the entire Pacific Northwest, and power was out here for three hours tonight. But now that the power is back on, I’ve decided to just go on as normal until it flickers and goes out again. After 20 years living here on the Oregon Coast, you get used to this, sadly. At least the power came back on after three hours. —– THE DAY Made it through the monsoon rains to the snail mail, the grocery store, and then to WMG Publishing around 2 p.m. for work on continuing to set…
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Heinlein’s Rules: Introduction
HEINLEIN’S RULES Five Simple Business Rules for Writing Introduction In almost 150 published novels (over one hundred with traditional publishers), I have always followed Heinlein’s Business Rules. And in hundreds and hundreds of short stories, I have followed the five rules as well. For well over thirty years now, actually, I have done my best to stay on Heinlein’s Rules. I must admit, I slipped at times, but I’ll explain why later on in the book. And how I climbed back on. So how did I get to these rules? A little about my personal story first. I started writing at the age of 24 in 1974. I had…
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Return on Assets
Return on Assets A number of very nice people who are deep into accounting and MBA reminded me today in letters and a couple of posts, that I was wrong as to what “Return on Investment” actually is. Well, sort of, and I forgot to do as I often do here to say, “I am talking in general to get the idea across to those without business and accounting experience. What I was actually talking about (realizing publishing and copyright is a very unique business in some ways) was Return on Assets, with your stories being assets. For those of you who don’t know what Return on Assets is, here…
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Figuring Writing Investment Return
Figuring Writing Investment Return The topic tonight comes from a couple people asking how a writer could figure ROI (Return on Investment) on their writing without following the numbers. More on that below. —— THE DAY Slept late, raining solidly here today. Nasty kind of rain, not our normal dump and then the sun comes out. I did errands, snail mail, bank, grocery store, other things, then got to WMG offices around 5 p.m. Worked there until 6:30 on Smith’s Monthly, then home to cook dinner, then back to WMG to work on Smith’s Monthly and do some work on the new store. Then home to do workshop assignments and…
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When Writers Face the Deadly Saying… “What’s the Point?”
Tonight’s Topic: When Writers Face the Deadly Saying… “What’s the Point?” This topic is the reason why I have been talking about the addiction to results and the other topics last week. This is how it manifests. Read those from last week and then read below. (Tomorrow I will go back over ROI and how it works with tracking money without numbers.) —— THE DAY Made it up to WMG Publishing around 1:30 to open up for the regular Sunday writer’s lunch. The restaurant we met in is moving, so until they reopen, we’re meeting at WMG in the kitchen and bringing our own lunches. Then I stayed around until almost…
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What Numbers You Need To Know
What Numbers You Need To Know A couple nights ago I did a blog about results addiction, the career-killing problem of watching numbers too much and other aspects of that addiction. I got a number of questions about what numbers are needed in an indie career, so below I’ll give you my opinion on a way to be a good business person without being addicted to numbers and taking those numbers into your writing. —— The New Workshops I was not clear on one thing last night about the workshops. The new workshop Plotting with Depth is now on the schedule through March. The older workshop we are bringing back,…
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Plotting With Depth Online Workshop Announced.
PLOTTING WITH DEPTH Online Workshop Announced Starting in December, two new online workshops. First, Plotting with Depth is now on the schedule. You must have taken the basic Depth workshop to take Plotting with Depth. Plotting with Depth is about the structure of all the openings throughout your novel, when to go deep with an opening, when to stay light, and how to hold a reader through a book by using Depth. One major area in this workshop is how chapter and scene openings differ from genre to genre. Critical to know how to hold your reader in your book. The Depth Online Workshop teaches how to get a reader down into your…
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Results Addiction
Results As An Addiction Over the decades I have watched a certain problem stop writer after writer from having a career. The problem is a focus on results. See below. —— THE DAY Made it to the WMG meeting by a little after 2 p.m., then spent an hour or so up at the WMG offices, leaving around 5 p.m. to combine grocery shopping with getting my 10,000 steps for the day. Since all the stuff over the last few days, I didn’t expect to get much writing done and I didn’t. I cooked dinner, took a very long nap, watched some television, then watched more television. Then made it…
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Learning in 25 Books
LEARNING IN 25 BOOKS That’s right, here comes the NaNoWriMo challenge starting up in November. And last year I was lucky enough to be a part of a bundle of how-to-write books. This year, I am lucky enough to be a part of that bundle again with the How To Write Fiction Sales Copy book. 13 books this year, plus the 12 from last year are all being offered together. You can get the new bunch, or for $25.00 you can get all 25 writing books from both years. And the new group includes Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman and also the impossible-to-find Writing to the Point by Algis Budrys.…
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Learning (A Newsletter-Like Post)
LEARNING Did some learning today that was darned cool. I’ll talk about it below in topics. —— THE DAY Running around the entire day, from an early meeting around 1:30 p.m. to two more meetings and then Kris and I headed down the coast to Newport to get some supplies and have dinner down there. Left the house around 1 p.m. and didn’t get back in here and done running around until almost ten p.m. That’s silly. Then did e-mail and took a very short nap before going to watch some television. Back in here around 1 a.m. to write. I sat down and off I went and I’ll be…