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WRITER’S BLOCK FREEDOM
Big New Two-Part Class With Webinar!! We are going there. Right into the teeth of Writer’s Block. Kris and I sat down a couple days ago over lunch and started talking about, and writing down, the types of writer’s blocks we have fought through or seen others fight. We defined the term “writer’s block” as something that causes writers to not write as much fiction as they want, or at slower speeds, or without fun, or in worse cases, not at all. (You writing at 400 words per hour, that is a form of writer’s block. Can’t finish stories… writer’s block. Dealing with family issues or job issues and feel…
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Writer’s Block
So Many Kinds and Reasons… So many reasons why writers are either stopped or have trouble writing. That all falls into a general pool called “Writer’s Block.” Now many of you know, I have hated the term “Writer’s Block” because it so feels like a made-up thing to easily identify what could be a different major problem, or a number of minor ones. And I have worked for decades now on helping writers get past reasons they are not writing without giving it a name. And so has Kris. But this last year or so Kris has finally got me past my hatred of the term and we have been…
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Classic Plus Prepare Ahead Classes
This Time Writing For PULPHOUSE FICTION MAGAZINE!! Last spring, to get the writers ready for the Anthology workshop and to help them understand what the book editor’s at the anthology workshop wanted, we did a series of Prepare Ahead classes on the WMG Writer Store. Each class had a interview by the book editor, guidelines, and ten videos about how to write short stories for that specific sub-genre. Lots and lots of good information. And then the writers wrote for the anthology. I was reading for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine at the Anthology Workshop, but the book editors had first choice of a story written for them. I still bought 7…
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Some Interesting Plotting
Watching the Old Magnum… For an hour or so each night, to relax, Kris and I watch television, and for some reason we got going on the old Magnum shows. We’ll stop when we find other shows or some network television returns. But tonight we had worked our way through season seven, which was supposed to be the last season. And I wanted to watch that show ender. He’s a ghost through most of the show and at the end walks into the clouds. Really well done with John Denver music. Then they decided to have a season eight because of the ratings and the money and had to get…
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Scheduling the Impossible…
Scheduling Is Something We All Get Used To… Indie writers at some level or another all get used to scheduling publishing projects. Nature of this new world and actually for me, I had so many deadlines in a year in the old traditional publishing days, I had a massive yearly schedule for writing and travel and deadlines and money flow. In indie publishing, scheduling is just something we all do at one level or another. And then there is the WMG Publishing schedule master, Kris. Two major ongoing projects (Pulphouse monthly) and Holiday Spectacular (More moving parts than you can imagine) are year-long things. Plus for our books and such,…
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Mentorships Still Availble…
Lots of Interest… But so far this is still open. Two posts ago I gave the full story on how these came about and the history. Do read that. So as I said, I can safely handle two more writers. Write me if interested and I will answer what questions I can.. Cost is $3,000. (This is just between you and me, no one else, although your partner is fine to ride along.) Any topic about writing and publishing is valid. I would be here to help you for as long as you want me to, meaning for years. But I do ask that every Sunday (or Monday or at…
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Two Mentorships Open
First Open Since 2022 Back in 2019, I opened up what we called a mentorship where I answered questions on anything that person wanted in writing and business of publishing. I took seven mentees total in 2019 and early 2020. How it sets up is that I asked the person to report in to me every Sunday (or Monday or at least once every two weeks) about what they were doing, progress or no progress. Writing or publishing done or not done. And plans for the coming week. I was sort of a check-point each week. If there were questions, I tried to answer them, or look at a cover,…
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Kris’s New Writing Challenge…
Starts Tomorrow (Wednesday) Runs from August 15th to September 30th. Every night those signed up get a letter from Kris talking about her day and writing and reporting her word count. Turns out it is great fun to follow along and I live here. (grin) Kris is doing these to stay focused on her writing as we wade through a bunch of crap in the business and since this is the third one, she says they are working. From her word count in the one ending today, I would say so. If you sign up for the $300 fee and can’t match her word count, you get the $300 in…
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Reading for Anthology Workshop…
Wish I Could Talk In General About Craft Stuff… But not going to because that will be for those attending in person the anthology workshop. But reading this many stories at once sure is something. All the writers are good, but just what and how makes one story work and another not work. Plus we are reading across six topic genres. SF Mystery, Cozy, Military SF, Fantasy Regency, Ghosts, and Halloween Romance. All the stories were written for those FICTION RIVER anthologies, all edited by different people, and I am reading the stories overall for Pulphouse. A great story for the anthology would not be a great one for Pulphouse.…
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Something Fun for Me…
Offering This To Just Four Writers… A few days ago I made an offer to a writer who was hoping to attend a craft workshop next year with Kris and wanted to be ready. What I offered was this and am offering to four more writers now. Sign up for one of the 2025 in-person craft workshops taught by Kris, either Gothic or Adventure. See how to sign up on yesterday’s post or write me. (Sorry, no lifetime in-person subscribers unless you want to buy an in-person lifetime subscription now, then I will do it for you. Write me for the cost.) Send me a short story every two weeks.…