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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…
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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…
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Reading Stories
Going Slow… There are few enough in the Great Challenge writing a short story per week (a number haven’t started yet), that I can just read a few stories each day during the week and really enjoy the process. A couple of the stories turned in that I have read today really worked, a few didn’t end. But that’s pretty standard. I am really going to enjoy this. The key is going to be the writers keeping my voice out of their heads and me out of their writing offices. Here is how that problem goes… — If I liked a story, the fear then crops up that the next…
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Never Give Up
A Very True Story… Some of you have heard me give the scary warning about Topanga Canyon, a writer who was so, so, so close to breaking in during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His real name is Preston Dennett. Well, I got to meet this wonderful writer and great person finally, after all these years, when he won in Writers of the Future. In fact, he and I share a table of contents, since we both have stories in Volume #35 of Writers of the Future. So John Goodwin, the publisher of Galaxy Press, thought it would be a good idea to have the two of us tell…
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Great Challenge Revisited
Reposting This… Because there are still spots open in both this short story challenge and the novel challenge. You can sign up for either on Teachable. —— For the last few years I have done quarterly challenges that many people have enjoyed. And a lot of novels or stories have come out of those challenges that I enjoyed reading. So a new challenge, with a brand new form. One a little saner and a little crazier in the same breath. And again, the fee goes toward two workshop fees. Kris and I have been talking about this one for a while. Here are the basics… Every week, on Teachable, a…
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Wrong Direction
Not One, Not Two, But Three Writers… Just today, when telling me for one reason or another about a project that they were working on said that they had gone in a wrong direction and had to toss out a bunch of writing. One person said almost a hundred pages. I seldom say anything when a beginning writer or early-stage writer says that to me. But I figured I could say something here. So if I did say something when someone made that “I went in the wrong direction on my novel…” comment, here is what it would be… First off, how do you know? Now every writer when asked…
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Filler Post to Keep the Streak Alive
I’m Not Even Doing Email Tonight… I’ll catch all that up tomorrow. Saw a fun movie tonight (Shazam) and had a good dinner and then Kris and I walked all over the downtown Las Vegas area watching tourists to get our steps for the day. Beautiful night, perfect temps with a slight breeze. And the tourists were in rare Saturday night form. Well, maybe not so rare. Normal Saturday night form, with too much booze and not enough clothing for people who should be wearing it. And we didn’t even get near Fremont Street, which looked far too packed to think about walking along. So now off to get some…
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Finally Back At The Writing
Last Two Days Were Solid… Took a little time to ramp back into the novel that was almost finished when the life roll hit and derailed everything. So I am at 44 days on a novel that should have taken less than 20. But after three weeks away, the last two days have been solid. I wrote both mornings as planned and then actually did sessions in the evenings as well. That might be the way I will work going forward, we shall see. Certainly get more pages that way. (grin) Also will finally be getting back on track on getting the web site done and getting some progress on…
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Ask Kris Anything Starts Sunday
And I Will Be Posting the Link to the Webinar Tomorrow… Instructions on how to send in questions ahead of time for Kris to answer during the live webinar will be posted on the site tomorrow as well. There is still room in this. You get a chance to ask questions of a long term professional writer, a major editor, a Times Bestseller, someone who has started two publishing companies, and someone who writes in most major genres. Webinar every month on Sunday at 11 am West Coast US Time. First one is this Sunday. And even if you can’t make this one, there will be 12 more. Sign up…
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#9 Pop-Up Free
The Author Problem… Pop-Up #9 on Teachable… I recorded it about four weeks ago before things went crazy with life, and so when I went back to put it up, it dawned on me that just about all writers need to hear this one. So we decided to make it free. And there is a story prompt for you to do a story from. Just don’t send this story in. I also loaded the first five of the twelve videos from the Pop-Up on YouTube. But the only place you can see all 12 videos is on Teachable. And speaking of new stuff on Teachable, we moved four regular workshops…