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Story #20
Have Not Missed a Day So Far… Today turned out to be novel day in my story challenge. I have been going through the stories and spell-checking them so Kris could read them. (She has read three in the last three days so far. I’m giving her one a day.) So trying to stay ahead of Kris reding, I pulled up Story #9 to spell check and remembered it was a novel start, I had written a ways into it and could not wrap it down into a short story. So I figured why not try to figure out a wrap now? 1,000 more words on the start and nope,…
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Story #19 in 19 Days…
Yes, It Is Getting Easier… Belief system in the creative voice is back solidly. Like I tell others, after life rolls, the writing is still there and sometimes a little stronger. Working out that way for me. Today I started off by spell-checking three of the earlier stories so I am about 7 stories ahead of Kris reading now. She liked the first two. Yay. But if she doesn’t, I will still publish them as is. But nice she is liking them. We walked to lunch. Beautiful winter day. I then watched some football, had a nap, cooked dinner, then after recording a workshop I spent far, far too much…
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Story 18 and Clean Up…
A Writing Day… With some football watching just for fun. And naps. Two napes to be accurate. But mostly the focus was on writing. After coming back from lunch, I spent a few hours this afternoon spell-checking five of my stories to have them ready to go to Kris. She read the first one and liked it and asked for the novel. It is a stand-alone story just fine, but it clearly leaves room for another Thunder Mountain novel. Next year. So anyhow, did that and then found a couple half titles and typed them in and nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. So I tossed half of that title away, kept…
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Story 17 and Last Day of In-Person Workshop Sale…
UPDATES ON IN-PERSON CLASSES This is the last day of the In-Person Early Bird Sale. Here are the spots remaining in the In-Person classes coming up…. Gothic May 5-8th, 2025… 1 Spot Left Time Travel October 13-16th, 2025… 2 Spots Left Adventure January 12-15th, 2026… Waiting List World Building May 4-7th, 2026… 1 Spot Left Detectives. October 12-15th, 2026… 2 Spots Left So until late today (Saturday), as an early-bird discount, the normal workshop fee of $750 is $600. If you sign up and pay today. Save $150. Also, for the first…
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My Story A Day Challenge…
Going Okay, But… The “but” is coming from critical voice, of course. It has been a stupidly busy first two weeks of the month and I got into a bad habit right out of the gate of starting the story too late at night. Way, way too late. Problem with that is being tired I tell my creative voice to do something short, and a lot of my Marble Grant stories and Bryant Street stories are in the 2,000 word range, so even though I never plan it, I default back to them. Amazing how powerful the creative voice is. It wants me to finish a story a day, but…
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Story #15 on Day #15
Starting Stories Toward Publication… Starting in a day or so, after the dust settles here from the In-Person Space Opera class, I will start getting a story per day to Kris to read. I will be doing covers for each story as I go along and of course writing a new story per day. But the story Kris sees will be a few weeks behind where I am at in the writing. Then the next step in making sure I have something to do with these stories is to put the first 10 into a collection, maybe with an unpublished story from a previous challenge. I will do the introduction…
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Space Opera Workshop Starting Here…
And Kickstarter Only Has Three Days Left… All kinds of stuff going on at the moment. Fun. Don’t miss the Series Collide Kickstarter. It has in it. couple of great workshops that will run in February, and also so far we have hit a stretch goal that allows backers to submit stories to Pulphouse Magazine in February. And we have a special stretch goal working right now to hit extra backers by late Monday. So help us pass the word. Take a look! This is a good one. UPDATES ON IN-PERSON CLASSES More signed up again today so after today here are the spots remaining in the In-Person classes…. Gothic …
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Story Eleven and Mentors
Talking About Mentors I did a one-shot class last year about what I learned from my mentors over 50 years of writing. It was fun to do, looking back like that. It is on Teachable and still available. No one gets successful in this publishing business alone, that’s for sure. And now Kris and I do our best to get our years of knowledge passed on to the next generations through workshops, blogs, and mentorships. Back when we were coming into the business, a mentorship was more of let’s talk when we are both at the same convention. Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm were different, slightly. They taught at Clarion…
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IN-PERSON WORKSHOPS ALL SET!!!
Space Opera In-Person Workshop Starts Monday… Right here in the WMG office in Las Vegas. We wanted to make sure it would work and it will. And will be great for writers attending for a ton of reasons, not the least of which is food and comfort and being able to have your own coffee in the room. (grin). So not having to mess with the problems of scheduling with hotels, and going back to what we had planned in 2019 before you-know-what hit, the craft workshops will all be in the WMG office for the next two years. And for the craft workshops, we are avoiding the summer. Just…
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Story #8 and Backing Up Work…
Back It Up!!! I learned this the very hard way back in 1985. I came back from the Portland airport to my house in Lincoln City to find it all boarded up and my mint collection of Astounding pulps hosed down on the front yard. Seems the fire started in the electrical box in my office. I lost all my stories that were not in the mail at the time, meaning about 100 short stories. I lost my first two written novels as well that were beside my typewriter that had melted into a puddle. I lost it all. Years of writing. It took me years to get back to…