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Writing Process…
Heinlein’s Rules and Pulp Speed… Had a great (but sad) back-and-forth discussion today with a writer who read my blog last night and said Pulp Speed would never be for him. I had no problem with that. Every writer is different and that’s great. Then this writer reminded me that he wrote rough (and sloppy) first drafts and rewrote three and four times and is lucky to get 100,000 words of fiction a year out, even though he spends three to five hours a day at it. I mentioned Heinlein’s Rules and how his writing method had trapped me for six years before I found Heinlein’s Rules and Bradbury and…
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Pulp Speed Post Once Again…
Just For Fun… I wanted to bring this Pulp Speed post back again just for fun for me to read again as I work to ramp back up. I figured I could use it again as well. (grin) (I wrote this post around 2014, then brought it forward to 2016, then 2017, and just about every year or so since, skipping 2022. Last time here was April. And we do have a classic workshop on how to do it.) Not at all sure why this idea of writing at Pulp Speed sort of hits me right. I think because it flies in the face of all the myths. A writer has…
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Your Writing Method Often Holds You Back…
Sometimes Writer’s Block Is Basic Like Structure… Spring of 1975. I had just sold in the fall of 1974 my first two short stories (and I had also been selling a lot of poetry.) I felt that even though I had just sold two short stories back-to-back, I felt I needed to learn how to write (a good instinct.) So I turned to writers who did not know how to write to teach me, but they seemed like they did. They talked a great game and their answers fit right into the common knowledge. Oops… (Good instinct to keep learning, wrong execution.) My method for writing the first two short…
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Telling Lies…
Professional Writers Don’t Have Writer’s Block… Can’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard that, and how many times over the decades I said it about myself. And I believed that lie I kept telling myself and others. I totally believed it, even though I had years and years at different times I fought forms of writer’s block. I just never called it “writer’s block” because my belief system was that “writer’s block” was an excuse. Uh, no. Granted, what I do is sit alone in a room and make stuff up. Not a hard thing to do, but wow when it came to writer’s block, I…
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Early Bird Discount Extended…
WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM Early Bird Discount… Discount now extended to Thursday, September 26th at midnight West Coast time. Why, because the discount is the difference between getting into the class and not for some. And we had a number of people ask if they could have a few extra days and when we said yes to one we wanted to make the extension for everyone. And remember, this starts on October 1st. Not very far away. WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM PART 1… October/November (starts October 1st) 9 weeks of classes, 8 assignments, 7 webinars. WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM PART 2… January/Feb (starts January 7th ) 9 weeks of classes, 8 assignments, 9…
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Expectations…
One of the Big Evils… Expectations can come from about a billion places for all of us. But most of the time we don’t even know when we have let an expectation in. Sometimes we do, though, and those are so deadly so fast, it is amazing. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard a writer say, I’m going to quit my day job for one year and I hope to be making a living after a year. Of course, that is flat insulting to any professional writer who has worked years and years to learn their craft and business, but we all know that…
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Time, Expectations, and Reality…
Three Topics in WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM… More I think about how Time, Expectations, and Reality mix, the more I realize that for me, all three are part of my writer’s block problems at the moment. Yes, as anyone who has been watching these blogs and the challenges this year, you know I am dealing with getting back up to my normal writing speed. Not being at speed is one of the hundreds of forms that Writer’s Block takes. Why can’t I just fire back up now that my shoulder is in good shape again? Why can’t I just get back into the writing chair more often? The answer, of course,…
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New Post About WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM
I Posted This On Thursday… Seems a lot of people missed it or saw the posts on Friday or Saturday and asked me questions. So I wanted to post this first post one more time here because Kris and I feel this is a critically important topic and doing it in two 9-week sessions with a webinar every week is the best way. And also be clear that we are skipping December. This starts on October 1st. So here is the first post again. Feel free to write me with questions. Big New Two-Part Class With Webinar!! We are going there. Right into the teeth of Writer’s Block. Kris and…
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Writer’s Block Classes Might Be Great Ones!
Getting Some Great Letters and Questions… I hope I am answering the questions all okay. And since the classes start on Tuesday the 1st, in just two weeks from Tuesday, Kris and I talked about the classes at a wonderful lunch today at our favorite diner, Black and Blue Diner. We will do this for a few lunches and then really start organizing everything in a manner than can be taught. And that will help everyone talking the class. It has became clear to both Kris and me that the two classes are going to be major learning and also a lot of fun. They are really going to be…
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Increasing Your Fiction Writing Production…
That Should Be the Subtitle… WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM: How to Increase Your Fiction Writing Production… I have always felt that using the term “Writer’s Block” was negative. And when Kris and I designed the class we announced on yesterday’s blog, we intend it to be a way to help writer’s increase their fiction writing production. Often different factors (loosely called Writer’s Block) take your writing down to a trickle or to zero. Right now I am fighting a number of factors that have me writing, as Mike Resnick said once to me, at a speed that feels like it is under water. Mostly just not making the time yet to…