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Needing a Reader and Copyeditor…
Fighting Myths Again… Beginning and early professional writers always seem to focus on needing to have editors and copyeditors and beta readers and everything else. Always overkill and usually, almost without exception, it also kills their writing and stories. Some background. This obsessive desire for editing and copyediting on novels comes from three places. — First, it comes from 1970s-1990s traditional publishing habits that have stuck around and passed around as needed like myths of a big tall walking snowman with a chainsaw. In other words, too stupid for reality in 2020, but still believed by those coming into the publishing profession. — Second place all this editing stuff comes…
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December Workshops Have Started
Almost Forgot… Things have been so crazy this month (for everyone I bet), I almost forgot to post here that all the December regular workshops have started. Yes, it is December!!! I am moving the Licensing 101 to Classic in the next month or two, but past that, nothing new yet. (The new workshop is the special workshop that you had to sign up for through the last Kickstarter.) List of December workshops below. However, I am in the process of posting the January workshops and then will update all the schedules in the next few days into March. Got some slots for some new workshops that will be announced…
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A Problem I Am Just Starting to See…
Submissions to Major Magazines… I flat believe that everyone writing short stories and who wants a writing career long term should get into the habit of sending short stories to major magazine markets. I have gone over the reasons may times. All upside when your stories start to hit. And I have just assumed it was some fear thing that stopped writers from submissions of stories to major magazines. Fear caused by baseless critical voice issues that I just assume that if a writer can’t get past the fears, they will never be a long-term writer. And I think all of the above is true still. No opinion change on…
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Interesting Lesson…
That Took Me Time To Learn With Exercise… But might help some of you with writing. I have two great friends who are on streaks of so many steps every day, both over 4,000 steps a day on bad days, usually a bunch over that. But they each have a minimum number. So does Kris and she never misses. The guys have been going out every day, regularly, getting steps. We are reporting to each other and being supportive. They were very supportive of my marathon extreme day. I did 55,000 plus steps last Saturday completing a marathon. One of them did more steps in six days and the other…
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WMG Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter About to End
Just Over One Day Left… This ends on Tuesday at 12 noon, folks and you don’t want to miss it. The 2020 Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter campaign is like we did 1n 2019, only better. For those who get the 2020 calendar in this campaign, you will get an original holiday story delivered to your inbox every day from American Thanksgiving (November 26th) through January 1st, 2021. (Yes, sort of an Advent Calendar using original short stories.) What a fantastic way to ride out of this crazy year. Over 25 professional writers have written original stories for this and the entire project is edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning editor. Kris also does an…
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Moving Forward Again…
The Election in the States is Over… So finally, after four long and lost days of far too much junk food and watching television, this election is finally over and we all can get started forward again. So a couple of the classes that we pretty much stopped this summer will be firing back up shortly. Let me list them here, while it is still possible to jump into them at half price for a few more days. The Decade Ahead… All four quarters… When Covid hit, we tried to do a duel course on this for a short time, one writing with Covid and one after Covid, but as…
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Stay Safe!!
Covid is Spiking Everywhere… So I really hope that all of you reading this are not taking an chances, staying safe, wearing masks, watching distance and all that. Right now Covid is worse than it has been, and I see no sign of easing up. So focus on the writing, focus on the learning of publishing and writing. Tough to get Covid when sitting alone at your computer writing. We are trying to help once again to keep you learning and in and safe with the half-price sale on the workshops that will be doing until Tuesday night. If you have any questions on anything, write me. Here is the…
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From Too Many Chips to Too Much Exercise…
Not Wednesday… No, the exercise is planned for Thursday. A very long walk/run. I figure after two days of eating far too much and too much stupid stress, I needed to do something. So going out for a half-marathon distance (13.1 miles), see how it goes, what my time is, what I feel like when done. So could be interesting. I’ll report tomorrow on how it went. But tonight I want to warn you all that this is the last day, the last few hours, actually of the BIG TIME STORYBUNDLE. Basically an entire bundle of time travel books and stories, some of the best I have read. And you…
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November Workshops Started
Including the Two Special Ones… And I am still reading the stories from the October special workshops, so give me a few more days on that. A lot of them are very good. So with the sale it is possible to sign up for November and December workshops. I started all the November workshops tonight because I am taking tomorrow off to watch the election. So the last two blogs have a lot of information about the half-price sale of workshops. And if you have any questions, write me. And if you live in the States and have not voted, go do so now. There are no excuses this time…
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Workshop Things To Note…
Especially with the Half-Price Sale Going On… — There is a page that I did two months ago with the curriculum of workshops and lectures and pop-ups with suggested order and sorting to try to make sense of all the workshops we offer. I have not included the last two months of stuff yet, but will. You can find the link on the right side of this page in the sidebar. Workshop Curriculum link… — The special three-week workshops that are given with Kickstarter campaigns are not offered anywhere. They can only be gotten through the original Kickstarter. And right now we have a special workshop offered in our Holiday…