-
A Problem I Am Just Starting to See…
Submissions to Major Magazines… I flat believe that everyone writing short stories and who wants a writing career long term should get into the habit of sending short stories to major magazine markets. I have gone over the reasons may times. All upside when your stories start to hit. And I have just assumed it was some fear thing that stopped writers from submissions of stories to major magazines. Fear caused by baseless critical voice issues that I just assume that if a writer can’t get past the fears, they will never be a long-term writer. And I think all of the above is true still. No opinion change on…
-
A Challenge For Everyone for 2021…
My Challenge of 70 While I Am 70 Pushes Me… So I got a comment about structuring a short story publishing challenge for 2021 for others, especially writers just starting out. And I think it’s a great idea for a bunch of reasons for most writers. So I thought I would go into the reasons and the idea here. Challenge: Publish 52 Short Stories Stand Alone In 2021 Note, I did not say write, I said PUBLISH. Stories would have to be stand-alone, most selling for $2.99 electronic and $4.99 paper. (Under 3,000 words sell it for $1.99… never 99 cents.) A lot of writers I know have collections published…
-
WMG Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter About to End
Just Over One Day Left… This ends on Tuesday at 12 noon, folks and you don’t want to miss it. The 2020 Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter campaign is like we did 1n 2019, only better. For those who get the 2020 calendar in this campaign, you will get an original holiday story delivered to your inbox every day from American Thanksgiving (November 26th) through January 1st, 2021. (Yes, sort of an Advent Calendar using original short stories.) What a fantastic way to ride out of this crazy year. Over 25 professional writers have written original stories for this and the entire project is edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning editor. Kris also does an…
-
WMG Holiday Spectacular 2020
ONLY FOUR DAYS LEFT!! This ends on Tuesday at 7 pm, folks and you don’t want to miss it. The 2020 Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter campaign is like we did 1n 2019, only better. For those who get the 2020 calendar in this campaign, you will get an original holiday story delivered to your inbox every day from American Thanksgiving (November 26th) through January 1st, 2021. (Yes, sort of an Advent Calendar using original short stories.) What a fantastic way to ride out of this crazy year. Over 25 professional writers have written original stories for this and the entire project is edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning editor. Kris also…
-
Book #1 of 70 Book Challenge
This Came Out On the First Day of the 70 Book Challenge… That’s right. On my birthday. TWIST OF A KNIFE: Best 10 Mystery Stories from the First Year of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. Well, it is not officially published yet, but you can get it in the Twist of a Knife Storybundle. So it actually is published and available. It is exclusive there for another two weeks or so, then it will go on sale around the world and be sent to everyone who supported the Pulphouse Kickstarter campaign. It was the 4th stretch goal. The book was a fun one to put together, actually. And I had help from…
-
So Today This Started…
A Twist of the Knife… A Mystery/Crime Bundle – Curated by Dean Wesley Smith This is the blog I wrote for the Storybundle you can get at https://storybundle.com/crime Every Type of Mystery and Crime I love reading mystery and crime stories. I write mystery and crime stories. I edit mystery and crime stories. In fact, in every issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine that I edit, I try to have at least two or three mystery or crime stories of various types. And since the readers of Pulphouse look for something different, the types of mystery and crime stories range across the entire spectrum of the mystery genre. I really noticed those differences when…
-
Moving Forward Again…
The Election in the States is Over… So finally, after four long and lost days of far too much junk food and watching television, this election is finally over and we all can get started forward again. So a couple of the classes that we pretty much stopped this summer will be firing back up shortly. Let me list them here, while it is still possible to jump into them at half price for a few more days. The Decade Ahead… All four quarters… When Covid hit, we tried to do a duel course on this for a short time, one writing with Covid and one after Covid, but as…
-
Stay Safe!!
Covid is Spiking Everywhere… So I really hope that all of you reading this are not taking an chances, staying safe, wearing masks, watching distance and all that. Right now Covid is worse than it has been, and I see no sign of easing up. So focus on the writing, focus on the learning of publishing and writing. Tough to get Covid when sitting alone at your computer writing. We are trying to help once again to keep you learning and in and safe with the half-price sale on the workshops that will be doing until Tuesday night. If you have any questions on anything, write me. Here is the…
-
From Too Many Chips to Too Much Exercise…
Not Wednesday… No, the exercise is planned for Thursday. A very long walk/run. I figure after two days of eating far too much and too much stupid stress, I needed to do something. So going out for a half-marathon distance (13.1 miles), see how it goes, what my time is, what I feel like when done. So could be interesting. I’ll report tomorrow on how it went. But tonight I want to warn you all that this is the last day, the last few hours, actually of the BIG TIME STORYBUNDLE. Basically an entire bundle of time travel books and stories, some of the best I have read. And you…
-
November Workshops Started
Including the Two Special Ones… And I am still reading the stories from the October special workshops, so give me a few more days on that. A lot of them are very good. So with the sale it is possible to sign up for November and December workshops. I started all the November workshops tonight because I am taking tomorrow off to watch the election. So the last two blogs have a lot of information about the half-price sale of workshops. And if you have any questions, write me. And if you live in the States and have not voted, go do so now. There are no excuses this time…