• Challenge,  On Writing,  workshops

    Futures: Patience and May Workshops

    They All Start This Week… Futures: Patience…. Pacing a Career. How, When, and Why? In this Future series for writers, we have available now (1) Refresh and Renew, (2) Opportunities, (3) Structure, and soon (4)Patience. You can sign up for them on Teachable at any point you want and go through them at your own pace. But this fourth one, Patience, will be paced like a regular six week workshop this first time through, starting Wednesday. And we have a bundle available to get a discount if you buy all four of the Future’s workshops. All four Futures Workshops are in the Lifetime Subscription as well and anyone with a Lifetime…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Saturday Night Post

    Fun Day Today… I worked on my website stuff and some workshop recording while Kris worked this morning on writing and a video, then we headed out for a great lunch at a brand new place. Then I shopped while Kris did some running, then deserts and home to watch a fun movie, have pizza for dinner, and I did a bunch of walking to get my steps while Kris read. In other words, a pretty normal day for most people, totally relaxing anniversary for us. Felt weird to just relax and go slow for a day. Just not used to that. (grin) And this blog keeps the blogging streak…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Week Two Great Challenge Update

    Sometimes I Will Give Updates… Mostly I will give these updates because I think it’s fun and good information and I will never, ever use any names in these updates. Just general stuff. I am impressed that every person who started on the first week got in a second story. And a couple people started on Week #2 and there is still a couple people who haven’t started yet. But no misses so far. Better than I had expected since I know how hard challenges are. Some people sign up for a challenge like this only to discover that challenges are just not their thing. That’s why even if you…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Writing Bundle One Week Left

    This Has A $50 Lecture in It… In this spring’s writer’s bundle on Story Bundle, we put in a $50 lecture if you get the bundle. 13 writing books and one lecture for $15.00. Tough to beat. The Write Stuff 2019 bundle doesn’t have many days left before it goes away. Get it at StoryBundle.com Here the books included, plus once again the blog Kris wrote for the writing bundle. The 2019 Write Stuff Bundle – Curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch This spring’s writing bundle has three themes: Finding Time to Write (no matter what your life’s circumstances are), Growing As An Artist, and Practical Business Advice. First, finding time:…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Future Workshop Series

    Fourth In The Series Starts Next Wednesday… Futures: Patience…. Pacing a Career. How, When, and Why? In this Future series for writers, we have available now (1) Refresh and Renew, (2) Opportunities, (3) Structure, and soon (4)Patience. You can sign up for them on Teachable at any point you want and go through them at your own pace. But this fourth one, Patience, will be paced like a regular six week workshop this first time through, starting next Wednesday. And we have a bundle available to get a discount if you buy all four. All four Futures Workshops are in the Lifetime Subscription as well and anyone with a Lifetime Subscription…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Fantastic Writing Advice

    “Write like everyone you know is dead…” Joe Lansdale said that in the post that he allowed me to copy here last night. And I wanted to point out that one simple things he says. Here is what he said on the topic in total: “Write like everyone you know is dead. To hell with everyone else’s opinion when you write. Write for yourself. I don’t have a perfect reader in mind. That works for some, but it makes me write for them which means I might not be writing for me. I have no idea what anyone else will like. I only know what I like, so I write…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Great Advice from Joe Lansdale

    Joe Allowed Me to Reprint This Here… It is an amazing post. Very clear and to the point. Worth the read. Thanks Joe, for saying this on Facebook and then allowing me to reprint it here. ———— Facebook Post April 23rd from Joe Lansdale: Each to his own, but the idea of multiple drafts is not necessarily a good idea. A writer can get lost in all those drafts, and think the more drafts the better the book. I polish as I go, so there’s essentially one draft, though by polishing as I go, I’m doing a lot of little daily rewrites. I don’t outline or plot, except subconsciously, I…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Hint: Don’t Wait Until Sunday

    At Least Not Very Often… Folks, deadlines are a fun thing and they really help us all at times get writing done we might not have gotten done without the deadline. That is what The Great Challenge is all about. Deadline. It is a no-lose challenge, where even if you miss a week, you get the money you paid for the challenge in credit toward anything we do in workshops. And the reason is to give each of you a deadline to get a story finished and to me each week by Sunday night. Second week now. Not everyone has started yet, and there is still room to jump into…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Thinking of a New Pop-Up

    Character and World Building While Writing into the Dark… Seems like a fun idea to talk about for a bunch of videos in the Pop-Up series, including techniques on how to do both character and world building while writing into the dark. Especially complex world and character stuff. I get a bunch of questions about this regularly, actually. Anyone even interested? It would open up in mid-May somewhere. In the meantime, Kris and I have a bunch of homework to do between writing to get ready for the licensing expo here in June. Going to be great fun and I hope to learn a ton and maybe make a few…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Some Real Basics

    Manuscript Format… Yup, doesn’t get any more basic than that, but so many newer writers have no clue what that even is. So I made it a requirement of The Great Challenge. I will count your story but not read it if you don’t have your story sent to me in a doc or docx attached file in manuscript format. A simple Google search will get you what it looks like. In fact, go to this link and there is even a picture of the first page of a manuscript exactly. https://www.shunn.net/format/story.html I found that link and others with a two second Google search. Oh, the horror… Point, I do…