• Challenge,  On Writing

    Quick Update Tonight…

    Got a Lot Done Today… Worked all day on workshops, and doing a lot of recording. Also worked on covers and downloaded 14 pieces of art for short story covers. I can tell you that took some time. Another 15 or so to go and I will be almost caught up. The art is the hardest part, so figured I would just do all the ones I was behind on all at once. Then the covers will take me ten minutes each  to finish and I can get more raw stories to Patreon. www.patreon.com/DeanWesleySmith I hit my challenge tonight even with a very late 12:30 am start. A really twisted…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Two More Stories on Patreon

    And February Workshops are all started… Still lots of time to jump into them. And I will have the March ones posted in a few days as well. Story tonight was a group of characters from other series. It was a Sky Tate story, but had Poker Boy and Marble Grant in it. Great fun and came in just over 3,200 words. I started it this afternoon for a change and it took just about 2.5 hours. I also did covers for the 6th and 7th stories from January and got those two stories on Patreon for those following the raw stories. https://www.patreon.com/deanwesleysmith Covers for those are below. One is…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    January Challenge Stories

    List of All 31 Stories for January… Well, after an amazingly difficult month in the real world, and basically just starting cold after a tough fall and December, I wrote 31 short stories, one per day, in January. Many, many nights I thought about just skipping the story and catching it up later, but I didn’t. All the stories were short stories except one I didn’t wrap up very well and it is a clear novel start. About eight of the stories are novel starts that I wrapped into short stories until somewhere in the middle of the month I managed to actually just write short stories. They ranged from…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Patreon Updates

    Smith’s Monthly #57 and 3 Raw Stories… Got those on Patreon. If you want to really see what Smith’s Monthly looks like, read the pdf version. You get to see it completely. And the last five pages with all the covers of all 57 issues is pretty stunning.  But for those of you at the $5 level on Patreon and above, I put up both the Bookfunnel link and the pdf of Smith’s #57, the January issue. Also put up three more raw short stories from the challenge. What is slowing me down is the covers, of course. I did those three in an hour, but I got to find…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Challenge Still Going Strong

    27 Short Stories in 27 Days… I will start tomorrow doing covers for them and getting the raw manuscripts up on Patreon. And finally get all that done there, including issues of Smith’s Monthly. But going to take through the weekend because I still have other stuff to catch up. A number of times my critical voice (which only exists in the form of “Why am I wasting my time.”  I have all other critical voice wiped out.”) came roaring up. A few days I was just too tired, but wrote a story anyway. So just getting each story done each day and having fun writing. I talked about all…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Six Weeks of Motivational Mondays…

    I’m Having Fun With Them… And the “Pithy Comment” each week as well.  Six weeks so far since I started back in December. 3 videos plus the comment each week. So each quarter there should be 39 videos and 13 Pithy Comments. (More this first quarter since I started early.) You can jump into them at any point. I hope those of you in there are enjoying them. So tonight, for the 23rd story this month, I did another Bryant Street story and for the first time in the hundred or so Bryant Street stories I have written, this is the first one that could easily be a novel and…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    A Day In The Life…

    A Challenge Day… People ask me at times to detail out my days, so figured I could do it quickly tonight. I won’t do this every night because I would bore myself to tears, but this is what I did today. Rolled out around 11 am after going to bed at 3:30 am. Thankfully the construction in the condo beside us was light and let me sleep. Working on changing my eating habits to more healthy food, so actually made myself a couple waffles this morning instead of my normal breakfast bar (that is awful) and tomorrow I will switch to oatmeal and almond milk for breakfast with a little…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing

    Another Bryant Street Story Tonight

    Both Upbeat… Sort of… Kris read the Bryant Street story from last night and said, “Wow, an upbeat Bryant Street story. I actually hadn’t noticed that it was. It was just twisted like all Bryant Street stories are. And in fact, last night’s story you could just see Rod Serling standing off to one side of the garage saying… For your consideration, a man in a house he hates, a marriage that broke years ago, trying desperately to find a way out. Blocking his exit, an old car, left abandoned for years in a field, now full of  the twisted hopes and dreams that can only be found on Bryant…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    A List of Stories So Far

    Even Though No Covers Yet… Thought I would list the short stories I have finished. The titles and their series, if any. I think the first 17 are all in series, so clearly had some stories to tell in my series, although one is a brand new series. More than likely in a few months, I will be telling non-series stories as well, plus maybe even some new series as they come up. All titles came from my title sheets to start, a few got changed as I went along. So here are the 17 stories as of the one I finished a bit ago. Jan 1st… The Curious Reasons…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing

    Writing Challenge Update…

    January 12th, 2020 Twelve days, twelve new short stories. (And yes, will start getting them to Paetron shortly. Just been stupidly busy and I have two projects to finish first in the next two days.) I also have not yet done the covers for ten of them. (Again, just too busy.) And a bunch of these would not have been written if not for the challenge. In fact, the story I wrote last night starting late and dead tired Kris said was wonderful and she thinks Queen would take it. I was shocked. Some of the others are clearly starts of novels I wrapped down to end as a short…