• Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing,  publishing

    March Workshops are Available

    April Workshops Tomorrow… It is Friday, so I decided to get some chores done. So I managed to post and get live all the March regular workshops. List Below. And tomorrow I will post and get live all the regular April workshops as well. I am leaving two spots open in April for new workshops and one open in March. So thanks everyone, on the feedback yesterday. And going to give some thought to writing a short book on the Stages of Publishing as a series of blog posts, then put the entire book in Smith’s Monthly before I publish it stand alone. And do the workshop as well in…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Ideas On My Lists for Pop-Up and Workshops…

    I Have A List… Actually two lists, tacked on my computer with thoughts of “That would make an interesting Pop-Up” and the second list is possible workshops. Thought I might share a few of the residents of those lists here. Comments are welcome, but be nice. Remember, it is only your opinion and someone else may really love the idea or hate it. And saying you like it does not commit you to taking anything. Kris and I are always looking for more ideas if you got something that you think would be a good idea for writers to study or learn or that you want to study or learn.…

  • Challenge,  publishing,  Smiths Monthly

    Smith’s Monthly Is Back!!!

    After Three-Plus Years!! Finally, Smith’s Monthly is back!! Yes, I haven’t really been gone for over three years. Just the magazine has. The date on Issue #44 of Smith’s Monthly is May 2017. The date on this new issue #45 is January 2021. So over three years. For almost four years before that, I did an issue per month and didn’t miss. One new novel, four or five short stories, and part of a nonfiction book. Or earlier on, a serialized novel. Every month. And I enjoyed it. All those issues are listed in posts on Smith’s Monthly web site, one at a time, with contents and cover. (Many of…

  • Challenge,  publishing

    Cover Fun

    Got Playing Around… I’m going to be putting out some collections this spring and through the summer and fall, so tonight I got playing around with some covers. I managed to do both of these, both wrap for paperback (except for spine… got to have page count first) and epub covers. It took me just slightly over 45 minutes to do both, and that included finding the art work, which is always the hardest part in my opinion. So thought you might like to see two of my collections that will be out over the next month or so. I’ll do more covers later for more collections. The first collection…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Colliding Worlds Five Volume Set…

    100 Science Fiction Stories… Fifty from Kris, fifty from me, in a five volume set. Colliding Worlds We are slightly over halfway through the campaign and it is doing great. We hit the third stretch goal, so everyone gets more books and two classic workshops. Basically, tThis is us having a great time. We have also talked about doing joint collections of some sort of another, and then Gwyneth came up with the idea of us putting 100 of our science fiction stories in the same set of five books called COLLIDING WORLDS and both Kris and I loved the idea. Really, if you have a few minutes, watch the…

  • Challenge,  publishing

    A Blog Post Worth Reading

    From a Bestseller Going Indie… Interesting stuff. Worth the read. They have been hybrid for a while, but looks like the math got them finally on the side of indie. (grin) Math can do that. And note they kept saying “Forever” when talking about rights. Anyhow, nothing else tonight except I have Smith’s Monthly #45 headed for publication and I almost have #46 together. So here is the link that you really should, for fun and education, go read. Flowers and Questions  

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  publishing

    One More Distracted Day

    Totally Expected… All good stuff today, of course. And by the time the world let go of me enough, and I had a nap to catch up on missed sleep, there wasn’t a lot of time and focus. But since I had just finished a novel yesterday, I spent today’s free time on Smith’s Monthly #45. I am basically done with it, a few ads to fill out, want to double check some stuff, then off it goes tomorrow to get published. Yeah! Soon as available, I will announce it here and the subscriptions to the electronic will go out, and the paper will follow when the paper issues are…

  • Challenge,  publishing

    New Challenge Update

    Nothing Changed… Just Some Focus… With all the world events, it has been damn near impossible for most of us to focus over the last two months. Still, going into 2021 with the vaccine coming on and the chaos-in-chief leaving, I figured the future was solid enough to make some goals and to push myself for 2021. And I still believe that. Just didn’t know that 2020 was going to have a 13th month. So lost a bunch of days and a bunch of focus, as many of us did over the last 20 days. And the waiting and wondering what was going to happen next just puts an underlying…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  publishing

    Colliding Worlds Kickstarter Doing Great!

    Hit Second Stretch Goal… And headed for the third. Kris and I are very pleased because we really love this idea of having a joint set of collections. Five books with fifty of her stories and fifty of mine to make 100 science fiction stories in total. That’s right, all science fiction. And all types of science fiction. All with the title Colliding Worlds. All of these have been published before, but I guarantee not one person out there besides the crew at WMG Publishing will have read them all. Or even a quarter of the 100 stories. Some of mine have only seen print in early volumes of Smith’s…

  • Challenge,  publishing,  Smiths Monthly

    Working On Smith’s Monthly

    Taking Longer But Almost Done… Maybe two more days before it is finished and heads for print, the first issue since 2017. Then I am going to start at once on the February issue and get out ahead. March right behind that. Why talking longer is the learning curve on InDesign complex magazine layout. Two columns with ads and everything. And second instead of being able to use some of the ads from the first 44 issues, I am rebuilding every ad. That is taking time, but that will get quicker as each issue goes by. So my work schedule is holding on both the last few chapters of the…