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Story Twenty-Six
DAY TWENTY-SIX… As I said last night, on my wall here in the office is a breakdown of the Smith’s Monthly issues I am working on. Ten issues ahead. I have started to put some of that on the widget to the side of the posts, and will update all that in a week. Patreon folks and subscribers, you will be getting ten issues over the next five months as I get caught up. (grin) For three years I tried to start off most issues with a Poker Boy story, but have only written one and have two others. So for the ten issues on the board that will come out as…
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Story Twenty-five
DAY TWENTY-FIVE… Humming along just fine now. Might actually make this challenge, which considering this month, is a flat miracle. We shall see in five days. Today I worked at WMG and did some walking as well. Got four miles in today, slowly ramping that up for the first of May as well. Going back to five miles per day minimum and adding in running again. Going to make another push toward a marathon again. Then I came home to cook dinner, take a nap, and watch some of The Voice from last night. Then around 2:30 a.m. finally got everything done with workshop stuff and got to my writing…
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The Magic Bakery: Chapter Six
Chapter Six… I get questions all the time about free. Should an author put up their book for free? How about their first book in a series? Does leaving something up for free forever work? Interestingly enough, The Magic Bakery works perfectly to illustrate the answer to these questions so writers can decide for themselves. All I’m going to be talking about in this chapter is basic, standard-retail sales practices. I won’t tell you one thing new in the world. You can see some of these practices working every day from grocery stories to music stores. But explaining these practices to authors who do not understand basic sales of retail has…
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Story Twenty-four
DAY TWENTY-FOUR… Started off the day working at WMG Publishing and doing all the banking stuff and things like that which is my job as CFO. I also managed to do two covers for the stories of the last two days. Then home to take a nap, cook dinner, and get to the workshops assignments. Got that done around 1 a.m. and headed to watch a little television. Then around 2:30 a.m. I got to my writing computer. I grabbed my half-title sheets and one of the first half titles I saw was “A Lady…” which I am sure came from a mystery magazine. So I kept flipping through titles…
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Story Twenty-Three plus stuff
DAY TWENTY-THREE… Started off the day at the writer’s lunch around 2 p.m. About twelve or so writers and great discussions, since five or six were there from the just-finished science fiction workshop. Great lunch, folks. Great discussions. Thanks! Then I basically took the rest of the day off until around 2:30 a.m. I napped, watched a bunch of television, napped some more. Didn’t even do the cover for the story from yesterday. So two covers to do tomorrow. Then around 2:30 a.m., very groggy, I got to my writing computer. Since last night I did the origin story of Tombstone Dan, one of the two main characters in a…
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Story Twenty-Two
DAY TWENTY-TWO… Science fiction workshop just ended here at the coast tonight. Kris was teaching and I had the pleasure of saying hi before each workshop and by when they were finished in the evening. A great group of writers. And wow did they work hard. I got home around 11 p.m. and went to join Kris, who was in front of the television being a vegetable, which she deserved to be. She read far over a half million words of fiction and assignments this week. So after I watched some television, took a nap, messed around with some e-mail, took another short nap, it was almost 3 a.m. before…
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Story Twenty-One
DAY TWENTY-ONE… Tonight I almost got caught by a beginner’s mistake. Real close, actually. I went to look up a fact and found myself an hour later still playing with research. And it was for nothing I really needed for the story. I just thought it would be cool to look up. Yikes! The worst waste of writing time is research. Not don’t take me wrong, writers often need to research. I am no exception to that and I have fifty or so major research books here in my office, not counting access to our major nonfiction library, not counting the good old Google. But I NEVER research on writing…
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Major New Writing Bundle!
Fantastic Writing Books and Discounts… Wow, Kris has put together one of the most amazing bundles to help writers I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of. And AbleGamers is the charity on this bundle, which is one of the best causes I have ever seen. So instead of me going on here about this, let me use Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s words to explain it all and her thinking on how this all went together. Take it away, Kris… ————– The Write Stuff 2017 After a long day at work, consumers want one of two things: they want entertainment or they want escape. Entertaining fiction provides a great escape,…
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Story Twenty
DAY TWENTY… Almost went for two stories tonight. And strangely enough, I started off groggy and not wanting to write anything. But the challenge forced me to the writing computer at around 2 a.m. A good start time for me. I sort of fumbled my way through the half title-sheets, trying to find something that would get my energy going. I spotted one word. “Delightfully.” Now that was fun. Two pages farther in my half-title sheets, I saw the word “Dizzy” and knew I had my title. “Delightfully Dizzy” had to be a Marble Grant story, so I typed that on the subtitle and off I went. I typed in…
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The Magic Bakery: Chapter Five
Chapter Five… I get a lot of questions about pen names and if writers should use pen names in this modern world of publishing. So let me use The Magic Bakery to explain my answer to that question. Now understand, the reason for this book about The Magic Bakery is to help writers understand copyright and the magic power of copyright in this world. But the metaphor of the bakery can help in business logic as well. And in sales. And in promotions. For example, understanding the power of free is clearly illustrated in The Magic Bakery and I will get to that in a later chapter. But for this chapter,…