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Too Many
Lost Way Too Many Good Friends… And I know, I know, that’s part of living and being a survivor. But it sucks beyond words. Unless you are not involved with science fiction, or have been living under a rock, by now you know that writer and editor, Mike Resnick left us this morning. On blogs and Facebook and a billion other places, people have been talking all day about how wonderful Mike was (and he was) and how he was a great writer (he was a working writer like me) and how he helped so many people over the years. (He did.) He was also damned funny and a great…
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Smith’s Monthly Issues
Working on Three… Sort of at the same time. I have so many unpublished short stories and basically three books I want to include in issues, I figured I might as well put all three issues together at the same time. So, in other words, Smith’s Monthly is almost back!! But the problem is that some of these stories I wrote three years ago and I have no memory of them, so sort of have to put them back in my head, and that takes time glancing back at them. And putting a Marble Grant (one of my character’s in the Poker Boy universe) novel together because basically I wrote…
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It Was A Monday
So To Hit My Streak… I am only putting up the listings of the January regular workshops that are starting tomorrow and Wednesday. And those signed up for the How to Write a Holiday Story in January from the Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter, it is also starting tomorrow, so don’t forget that. Here is a list of the workshops: The regular workshops last six weeks and are $300. Some good workshops this month. And Writing Romance is brand new. Class #1… Jan 7th … WRITING ROMANCEClass #4… Jan 7th … Writing into the DarkClass #5… Jan 7th … Writing Sales CopyClass #6… Jan 8th … Depth in WritingClass #7… Jan 8th…
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Lost Five Challenge Writers
Five Short-Story-Per-Week Writers… They didn’t make it through the holiday season. And actually, that is fewer than I would have expected to lose. Middle of the winter, flu and cold season, holiday, travel, and who knows what else. A ton of reasons to not complete a story in a week, or even think about writing for a few weeks. And this year, with the holidays smack in the middle of the week so none of us had a clue if it was Monday, Tuesday, Friday, or what? Sunday deadline just seemed alien to many, me included. And what was amazing is that all five writers that dropped out over the…
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January Workshops Starting
Romance Workshop and Others… On January 7th and 8th, the regular workshops for January are starting. And that includes the brand new How to Write Romance workshop. Besides the Lifetime Workshop Subscribers who can take a workshop when they like, only one person has signed up for the Romance workshop. But I am still going to record it and have fun doing so. I want to work through it myself, to be honest, to nail down some points for my own writing. Plus a number of the Lifetime Workshop Subscribers have said they are interested, so will do it for them as well. The regular workshops last six weeks and…
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Book Birth Day
Kris Did An Awesome Post… And an important one. In fact, she and I have been thinking this way for a long time, just having a name for it now is really, really helpful in the attitude change that is required for this new world of writing. And as Kris does so well, she explained this attitude shift perfectly. So go read her post. You can find it at Book Birth Day. Might be a piece of advice that will save your career if you have been locked into the launch mentality of old publishing. Time to crawl out of the last century if you are and join 2020. Books…
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First Day New Year
A Good One Here… Actually, we started the day off watching the fantastic fireworks over the Strip here in Vegas. Nice night, not too cold, great fun. This this morning we were out toward Summerlin in a park, running a 5K charity run. We ran in the same park on New Year’s Eve in the early evening. So two runs in about 18 hours. I did fine on the first one, but I have a hip injury that slowed me down on the second one this morning. But I made it just fine. Slow, but fine. Now to give the injury a few days to heal before running again. However,…
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I’m Doing The Great Publishing Challenge
Yup, I Will Be Documenting What I Am Doing… For those who want to jump into the Great Publishing Challenge of publishing 12 books in a year, you will also get my progress reports regularly as videos in the challenge. But I am taking it to another level, as you might expect. I will be publishing three times the challenge, or 36 books in one year. And if you are doing the challenge, you can watch me do it. But first off, if I was in the stage many of you are, here is how I would do the 12 book challenge. (Think how fantastic it would be that one…
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A Tough Week…
For Writing Streaks and Challenges. Amazing how such a good time of the year can be so tough on writing. After all, it is the holiday season full of fun and family and travel. And that’s the problem… it’s the holiday season full of fun and family and travel. More streaks and challenges break in this last week before Christmas than any other time of the year. But thankfully, next week is the start of a new year and challenges and streaks can be fired back up then for the long winter. After forty years in this business, I have observed general times of the year where writing comes easy…
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Great Publishing Challenge
Something New… For much of 2019 we have been doing two challenges, one for writing novels, one for writing short stories. And a lot of novels or short stories have come out of those challenges that I enjoyed reading. And over the years I have also challenged myself to get books into print and many of you have watched me do that. So a new challenge that fits hand-in-hand with the Great Novel Challenge, The Great Short Story Challenge, and The Decade Ahead class. A challenge a little saner and a little crazier in the same breath. And again, the fee goes toward two workshop fees. Kris and I have been…