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Creative Process
I Was Paying Attention Today… For a moment, at the beginning of the new story, because I was tired. Only lasted a paragraph or two before I went down into the story, but figured this might be interesting to a few of you. I started off with my half-title sheets like normal. Saw the phrase “The Last” and then a couple of pages later, keeping the phrase “The Last” in my mind, my creative voice spotted “Summer Girl.” “The Last Summer Girl” Depending on how the story went, I could hyphenate Last-Summer to change the meaning. Fun title. No idea of a series jumped to mind, so I just started…
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Quick Workshop Update and Story #22
Story Challenge Still Going… First I want to update a few things on workshops. We have one Lifetime Subscription to All In-Person Workshops left available, then we are going to close it down again. Last time that was open was 2017. And there is only one left now. Cost is $3,000 and write me if interested. We have one mentorship open with me. It lasts for as long as you want it to last and I am here to answer question and be your supporter and cheerleader. I ask that you report to me regularly on how things are going and I will help with covers and sales copy and…
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A Tiring Day…
Story #21 of Challenge… Had a great time today walking briskly 1.5 miles, then hitting golf balls for an hour, then back. Did this with Ron and it was great fun. I think I did a little better than I did the first time a month ago. But wow am I out of shape. Even though I am down about six pounds from the first time, that kind of full-body movement is great and tiring, especially for stretching out the shoulder. But wow was I exhausted when I got back because of the five hours of sleep, so spent three hours this evening catching up on sleep. Finally made it…
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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 …