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Wow! Have We Done a Lot…
I Swore I Wouldn’t Do Online Classes… Not kidding. I swore I wouldn’t do them. Back before there was anything like Teachable, I was pushed into doing one online class one fall by a group of writers, encouraged by my wife. I swore it would only be one. I honestly did. Kris and I laid out the class and I presented it. Had to create a web site that acted very much like Teachable for the first few years. Then since we had decided for the moment to not do any more in-person classes, I did a few more over that first year. (We brought the in-person classes back at…
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Looking Forward…
Monday Morning Classes… Over the years we have done numbers of Monday morning classes, where every Monday morning four new videos appear on a certain topic. For 2025 we are doing PUBLISHING MONDAY and BITE-SIZED BRANDING AND TRADEMARK. Both should be great fun, 52 weeks of four videos per week per class, and they are available as the 4th item on the 12 Days sale list for 50% off. (No homework or assignments, just learning every week.) In 2023, we did a very future-looking Monday morning class called THE DECADE AHEAD, talking each week on how to focus out ten years with your writing and publishing. And just today I…
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I Am Making Progress On My Challenge Preparation
Actually, A Lot of Progress Today… I even did a couple of Smith Monthly Covers!! Still not sure about some of the tiny detail stuff, but covers look very possible and a lot of fun. Yay! I also did some of that basic stuff like used a few exterior hard drives to make sure everything was backed up. Amazing how many files I have with my fiction since my first computer days. And got two computers down on my office desk in WMG and ready to get set up. Those coming to the January Space Opera here in Vegas in mid-January will get to see all that sort of thing…
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More Challenges for the New Year…
Our Regular Four Challenges Enter the 2025 Holiday Sale… For years now we have had four challenges that writers can jump into at any point during the year and start at any time. — THE GREAT CHALLENGE which is to write and send to me one short story a week. — THE GREAT PUBLISHING CHALLENGE which is to publish one major thing a month. (Collection, novella, or novel.) — THE GREAT NOVELLA CHALLENGE which is to write a new novella every month. — THE GREAT NOVEL CHALLENGE which is to write a new novel every two months. Very few people have tried the novel challenge and only a couple of…
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Talking About Advanced Craft….
So Much To Learn and It Never Ends with Craft.. I am always calling very advanced and successful writers “Stage Four” writers because they do things in craft and storytelling to hold readers. And readers never see what the writer is doing and most middle stage writers can’t see it either. Sort of like watching a chess master when you “play” chess. You know the pieces and how they are supposed to move, but you can’t see what the chess master is doing. So a few years back Kris and I put together 18 Advanced Craft Workshops. They are nine weeks long each. We did six in 2023, six more…
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Discussion About Publishing…
So Much To Learn and Do… Indie publishing just eems overwhelming, I know that for a fact. I am going to be doing a lot of my own layouts and publishing on my challenge in this coming year (I will announce what I am doing with the challenge after Christmas as I ramp up.) And I am trying not to panic. Failing at times. So I have really been giving a hard look at all the details now involved with publishing and sales. And slowly realizing I need to figure out a way to organize all that I am learning and have learned to keep the panic down to a…
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Interesting Copyright and Workshop Fun!
Copyright Notice… Kris and I went to see Wicked (part one) tonight. Great movie and I am a fan of L. Frank Baum’s work in all manner. I have read all 14 of the original OZ books, some numbers of time, and most of his short stories. At one point before my house fire, I even had 12 of the original hardback with dust editions with the fantastic (Denslow and Neill) art. So I am sitting watching the credits tonight and made note of the credit given to the author of the derivative novel, Gregory Maguire. But unless I missed it, not one credit to the original Baum source material…
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The Power of a Streak…
I Get Reminded of Streak Power At Times… Especially on a Friday night, after a stupidly difficult week. Why? Because I have a streak of blogging every night. And wow does this streak have power. No chance on the planet would I be at this computer tonight without this streak. But tonight is day 3,920 WITHOUT MISSING A DAY… That is flat nuts, But here I am. And sometime in March if my math is correct, if the streak does not get broken, I will pass 4,000 days without missing. Internet outage before hot spots, dozens and dozens of power outages, crashed computers, me in the hospital twice. Never missed.…
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A BUNCH OF STUFF…
Trying Something Old/New Tomorrow, if the schedule allows, I am headed with a friend to hit a few golf balls. Now understand, way back in time I used to be a PGA professional and I could play pretty well for the time. But for the last number of years, I have not hit a golf ball and am not sure if I can. Why? Lost a lot of my vision two years back. Last year I smashed up my shoulder and it is now titanium. Plus with the injury I gained about twenty pounds around my middle that I have not been able to shed yet. Plus I am 74.…
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FOCUSING FORWARD…
Watching the Old Magnum Television Series… It was filmed in the eighties. We are watching it not to study anything, but to shut down and enjoy the entertainment, even though sometimes dated. Still fun. The one we watched tonight was about the internment camps of Japanese Americans on the islands. It happened 40 years before the show was aired and they kept talking about those 40 years. The show aired 40 years ago now. So interesting to think about the 80 years. 40 years ago Kris and I had not met yet (a couple of years from meeting, actually). We were both writing like crazy, but both of us were…