• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Eight Days In

    Going Fine… Afraid to say too much here early on because of the three misses last fall. But so far this new writing schedule is working as I had planned and hoped. I made it to the restaurant 5 of the last 8 days, and wrote every day some. Worst day was only 600 words, best days over 3,000. But my focus is now back on writing every day and that feels wonderful. After eight days, the novel is at just over 15,000 words, so not averaging 2,000 words a day as I wanted, but close and I’ll take it in start-up with new schedule. I have written some almost…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    A Cover For A Book…

    And This Cover Has A History… When I get started writing a book, after I get going, I tell Allyson what it will be, the title, and she does me a cover way before I am done. I love having the image to see the book as I write. And sometimes my creative voice puts the cover image into a scene as well. That is always fun. Doesn’t always happen, but fun when it does. So I had started a Cold Poker Gang novel called Side Pot and Allyson did a cover for it with this great art. I loved it, got stalled on the book and moved on. (You…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    A Bunch of Stuff Again…

    Call This A Rapid-Fire Round-Up… — The Emotions Workshop will be added into April Regular Workshop list. I will have the list available for sign-ups by Saturday. Don’t try to sign up yet. — All the Stretch Goal letters have been sent out for the Make 100 Paperbacks Kickstarter and I also did a Kickstarter update to just the backers with the same letter for the stretch goals to make sure no one got missed. — I have my new computer, new Adobe Suite, and will be starting on actual books in the Make 100 this weekend (assuming I don’t blow a brain fuse learning a new version of inDesign.)…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Old Dog New Tricks

    That Is What I Called This… I’m the “old dog.” I am moving from writing late at night for the first 40 years of my fiction writing career to now writing in the morning (with some sessions later in the day or evening) for the next forty years. My goal now is to walk out of the condo every morning, go to a buffet about a mile away (to get steps), and write at least a thousand words before leaving. I started a Cold Poker Gang novel with new characters and I have been managing (except for one morning) to get out and set the routine. Yesterday I got out,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Nifty Blogs

    Anthology Workshop Stuff… Since next year’s anthology workshop sign-ups are filling fast at the moment, as they always do after we finish one, I thought I would share two blogs about the workshop for those curious or thinking about signing up. Both are from writers who attended this year. Tami Veldura and Ron Collins. Tami’s blog is about attending this year. Ron’s is about being an editor at the workshop last year. (And he and Brigid are coming back for the next one to edit.) Once more, the email group for next year’s workshop will start in five months and the writing will start in late November. So this is…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Too Much Time Researching/Playing

    Doing Research Is Play… At least it is for me and most other writers who get sucked down into researching fun stuff. Fun for us that is. (grin) The key is you can’t do it and not write. For me, tonight I was searching for information about the Hotel Nevada on Main Street in Las Vegas. It has been shuttered for a lot of years now and is owned by the Golden Nugget. (Tough search because of the name.) It sits right beside the Nugget parking garage for those who have been here. You never notice it because it has been painted to look like the Nugget. So I wasted…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Challenge Is On (Again)

    Here Are The Rules of My Challenge… Some of you might remember I wanted to do 10 books in 100 days. And I set that challenge in September in an effort to ramp back up my writing after finally getting moved to Las Vegas. Total failure to even start. Reset again in late October, failure again. Lots of talk with Kris. Lots of puzzlement as to why I couldn’t make the time to write. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I did. Just turned out each day I didn’t for a host of reasons. About that point in late November I realized the problem and how deep it was.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Depth As Hearing

    Kris and I Had a Great Discussion About Depth Today… All because I was getting fitted with nifty, programmed hearing aides. Why that discussion? Because for the first time in a long time, maybe decades, I could hear certain things. Things I didn’t even know I wasn’t hearing. And that lead to the discussion about depth in writing in all its forms. Some writers had trouble with it in this last workshop and that was because they didn’t even know they were missing it. I didn’t know I was missing sounds. I just knew I had trouble hearing at times, not that a massive range of sounds were not available…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    I’m Back But Behind

    Well, Brain Isn’t Totally Back… I will be caught up over the next day or so on all email and stuff. Then on Friday and Saturday the workshop stuff will go out to the Kickstarter folks. I had hoped to have it out before the Anthology Workshop, but that didn’t happen with all the reading. And tomorrow I actually get to start hearing again. Picking up and getting trained on nifty, modern hearing aides. (Never had them before.) Loud sounds (mostly music in bars) killed a lot of my hearing (yes, I have gone through lots of tests) when I was younger. Luckily it was just that and age and…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Last Day of the Anthology Workshop

    I Have Had a Blast… And for those who have been wondering, my novel-writing challenge will start for me on Thursday to write five novels in 100 days. That is the first leg of the challenge. Second leg is to write seven novels in 100 days. Third leg is the last 100 days of the year I will attempt to write 10 novels in 100 days. So the challenge ramp-up starts on Thursday. I am so looking forward to it and so ready. Not a clue what I will be writing, but got a hunch it will be a Cold Poker Gang since I have a title eating at me…