• Challenge,  On Writing

    Story Was Interesting Writing…

    I Have No Idea If It Works… Of course, I never do with any of my stories. This one today started around noon this morning. I found a great title I really loved… “The Sharp Arrow of Timing” What a great title. Combined part of one title “Sharp Arrow…” and part of another title “…of Timing.” So I started typing no idea what the story was going to be and up popped Poker Boy. Super. I did about four hundred words and then got sidetracked with Friday business and went off to lunch and then back and wrote another thousand words and then had two naps. Yes, two. An hour…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Six Days… Six New Stories

    Got Past the First Bump… Had a stupidly crazy week of things that needed to be done now. Including recording three Pop-Up classes that did not get done and putting together five collections (that also didn’t get done yet.) Those will happen shortly. But we do have a new Kickstarter coming next week if we get approved. I built it and it’s a great one. And all the time I was writing short stories. Six in six days. But today I was tired, wanted to just go watch television, and had not gotten much of a start earlier on the story (meaning 400 words) So 11:30 pm I wanted to…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Challenge Day One

    Went Exactly As I Had Planned and Hoped… I got up late, made it to my writing computer first thing at the crack of 11:30 am, walking right past my internet and email computer.  (I was so proud.) I looked at my half-title pages and came up with a first half of a title.  “The Reason…” Then I kept looking for a second half to collide with it and saw… “of Death.” That hit me, so typed that into the title of my story template “The Reason of Death” and started the story. Started off in a suburb, so figured it was going to be a Bryant Street story until…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    I Think I Am Ready…

    …To Start My Challenge… For those of you new here or not following my trying to make a decision on a new challenge for 2022 all those weeks ago, here is what I decided to do in shorthand. — I will write a new short story per day every day of the year in 2022. — I will blog at least once a week, maybe twice a week about the stories being written and the days of writing. — I will do a cover for every short story as I go along and show it to you. — Each month the stories and the blogs and the covers will be…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    January and February Workshops

    Includes New Pulp Speed Workshop… And yes, the Pulp Speed Workshop has been included in the Lifetime Workshop Subscription and no, if you have a lifetime subscription, you do not have to tell me you are going to take it. I’ll know when you turn in the first assignment. The Pulp Speed workshop starts February 2nd. The idea is to help you increase your productivity with your fiction so that you work towards Pulp Speed One (a million words a year). Even if you don’t want to get that far, this class will help in increasing productivity. And yes, Allyson and Kris convinced me. We will have a year-end sale starting…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Three Weeks Until The First of the Year

    I’m Excited to Be Started… Now that I finally decided on the challenge, I’m really excited to be going, and more than likely will write some practice stories over the next weeks just to get back into the feeling. And I still got some bookkeeping to get into place, something easy every day to keep track of things. And next Monday the Motivational Mondays start. Two extra Mondays in December for the first quarter of the year and the videos will be motivational about setting goals and challenges and such. And the positives in them. I am going to use these Motivational Mondays to help myself a lot along the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    My 2022 Challenge

    Finally… Took a While… Going to take a little time to go through the process of how I came to do this challenge and what I considered. So you all can set your challenges and goals for the coming year as well. Remember, I have been at this for a very long time and I wanted to do something with writing I had never done before, to really be challenged. Things I Considered (that you also might want to think about). — What kind of time do I have to write? That is with all the other stuff I am doing that is important to me, such as exercise, doing…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  On Writing,  publishing

    MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

    We Finally Pulled the Trigger… Motivational Mondays have been launched on Teachable and our now live. Kris and I have been talking and planning this for some time and we think it’s going to be great fun and very valuable for those getting it. Here is how it works: Every Monday on Teachable (actually Sunday night late so you can view them on Monday morning), Kris and I will put up at least three videos on some motivational topic or another concerning writing, publishing, and all the stuff around writing and publishing. See the partial list below of topics. The idea is to help writers stay on track, get unstuck,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    December Workshops Started

    All December Workshops Have Started… As of today! Still time to jump into any of them. We have two indie publishing classes, COVERS 101 and PUBLISHING 101. There is the critical workshop to start on all craft classes called WRITING WITH DEPTH. This workshop helps you start stories and pull readers into your work. And if you are having trouble writing, finishing what you write, or getting what you write out to the world, you need the KILLING THE CRITICAL VOICE workshop. TEAMS workshop will make writing novels a ton easier, and the SPEED workshop can help you to write faster. The two newest workshops we have offered are tough.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Getting Ready for a New Year Or Challenge

    Tracking Time… That is exactly what I have been doing the last three or four days. I have been keeping track of time in basically 15 minute segments. What I have been trying to work out for my own challenge is “Do I have the time it will take?” Time is like water. It just fills whatever space available. But seemingly never quite enough of it. So I have been looking at how I actually spend my days and where I could get more time and not really miss anything I am doing now. I am on an exercise and losing weight streak. Doing 10,000 steps minimum per day (5…