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Story #27…
Just Kind of Stumbling Along… Got some adjustments to make, but about to drop this challenge into the publishing part. That’s going to make it even more interesting. Story tonight was a Bryant Street story and I started it with a play off of Serling’s old Twilight Zone episode starts. Kind of fun. Also I think I got it finally why writers have trouble with valuation of their own property. Here is the analogy. If you built say a theater complex with all kinds of extras involved. And you opened it for business and the first night it made $500, if you were a writer you would think that theater…
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Quick Workshop Update and Story #22
Story Challenge Still Going… First I want to update a few things on workshops. We have one Lifetime Subscription to All In-Person Workshops left available, then we are going to close it down again. Last time that was open was 2017. And there is only one left now. Cost is $3,000 and write me if interested. We have one mentorship open with me. It lasts for as long as you want it to last and I am here to answer question and be your supporter and cheerleader. I ask that you report to me regularly on how things are going and I will help with covers and sales copy and…
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Story #19 in 19 Days…
Yes, It Is Getting Easier… Belief system in the creative voice is back solidly. Like I tell others, after life rolls, the writing is still there and sometimes a little stronger. Working out that way for me. Today I started off by spell-checking three of the earlier stories so I am about 7 stories ahead of Kris reading now. She liked the first two. Yay. But if she doesn’t, I will still publish them as is. But nice she is liking them. We walked to lunch. Beautiful winter day. I then watched some football, had a nap, cooked dinner, then after recording a workshop I spent far, far too much…
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Story #15 on Day #15
Starting Stories Toward Publication… Starting in a day or so, after the dust settles here from the In-Person Space Opera class, I will start getting a story per day to Kris to read. I will be doing covers for each story as I go along and of course writing a new story per day. But the story Kris sees will be a few weeks behind where I am at in the writing. Then the next step in making sure I have something to do with these stories is to put the first 10 into a collection, maybe with an unpublished story from a previous challenge. I will do the introduction…
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Story #8 and Backing Up Work…
Back It Up!!! I learned this the very hard way back in 1985. I came back from the Portland airport to my house in Lincoln City to find it all boarded up and my mint collection of Astounding pulps hosed down on the front yard. Seems the fire started in the electrical box in my office. I lost all my stories that were not in the mail at the time, meaning about 100 short stories. I lost my first two written novels as well that were beside my typewriter that had melted into a puddle. I lost it all. Years of writing. It took me years to get back to…
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7th Story and Kickstarter Success…
NEW WRITERS HAVE NO HISTORY… And I honestly would not expect a new fiction writer coming into publishing for the first time to have any perspective on what happened, often before they were born. So I am trying to imagine what a new writer faces today in 2025. A dumping ground on social media of really bad opinions and information that just makes it all seem impossible. And with their craft, they carry a ton of destructive baggage from teachers. Rewriting, polishing, beta readers, workshops, you name it. A hundred ways to destroy anything original in a new writer. Then the publishing world itself looks totally overwhelming. Publish your own…
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SERIES COLLIDE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE!!
SERIES COLLIDE IS PART OF THE COLLIDE SERIES… Yeah, I know, kind of weird, but in the last five years we have done these collide Make 100 Kickstarters with 50 stories by Kris and 50 stories by me on different genres or topics. So this year we are doing stories from Kris and my series, and this is the 5th installment of the Collide Series. Two great special workshops in this one as well about how to write series endings (stories, books, entire series) and how to write Cross-Genre series, which both Kris and I do a ton. Her Retrieval Artist series and my Thunder Mountain series are two examples…
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Day Three of the Challenge
Stunningly Simple and Yet Difficult to Understand… You become a trademark owner as soon as you start using your trademark with your goods or services. You establish rights in your trademark by using it. Here is what I think is the problem with fiction writers with both copyright and trademark. Fiction writers have no issue making stuff up. Yet when it comes to putting a value on what they made up, even if readers or editors buy it, that product has no value to them. And writers purposely stick their fingers in their ears and hum the Star Spangled Banner when you try to talk with them about the value…
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First Day of the Challenge…
Publishing Opinions from Yesterday… Interesting that no one agreed or disagreed or said anything about the opinions yesterday of where I think indie in 2025 will go. But I did get a letter from a new writer asking me if my book Killing the Top 10 Sacred Cows of Publishing was still accurate. I told him it was dated and things are much worse now for traditional publishing for fiction writers than they were when I wrote the book ten or so years ago. Much worse. Traditional publishing is a graveyard for young fiction writers and their dreams. No other way to look at it, sadly. But this guy also…
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My 2025 Challenge
And Back to the Format of this Blog… This blog on most nights will be in three parts for all of 2025. Part 1… PUBLISHING… First part I will talk about something in publishing or writing. More than likely finish the series on trademarks and so on. That will start tomorrow. Part 2… LEARNING… This will be all sorts of things about books or learning or workshops… For example, the 12 Holiday Days of Workshop Sales is still going. See yesterday’s blog. Great bargains to help you learn and get into the new year. Part 3… MY WRITING… Every night I will write about my writing that day, about the…