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Never Give Up
Much Harder to Say Than Do… But this week at the Writers of the Future I heard a lot of fantastic stories about success because the writer just kept pounding the markets. I remember that when I started out. From 1974 until 1982, stories out, no sales. And then I started following Heinlein’s Rules and sales started. First year I sold six short stories. (One to Writers of the Future.) But I wrote 44 and had them all in the mail. All the time. If a manuscript was rejected, I sent it back out often within hours. So rejection was a way of life. I put all the rejections in…
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Challenge Still Open
I’m Home and Back At Everything in the Morning… But wanted to answer one question about The Great Challenge. You can start any time you want and you don’t have to tell me. The first prompt goes up on the 14th. But you can start when you want. How will I know you are starting? I will get a story from you. That starts the streak. I will have a list of those in the challenge and will note when you hit a week and then read your story in the middle of the week. If you miss a week after you have started, I will send you a note…
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Another Fun Day
At Writers of the Future… Writers here are great, people are nice, fun discussions. A number of us closed the bar tonight. Martin Shoemaker and a few others. And I got to meet one of my favorite artists, Larry Elmore. He and I ended up hanging around together and talking about the 1960s and art and other things for a couple hours. A wonderful man and great artist. So a really fun day. Tomorrow is the ceremony and dinner and then I will be headed home. A fun few days in the craziness of Hollywood. And if you emailed me anything today, I will get to it in the morning.…
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Some Questions About the Great Challenge
Got Some Good Questions Today… So let me try to answer them quickly tonight. — First of all, if you are taking another workshop such as the short story workshop, those stories would count. If you are coming to the Anthology workshop, or one of Kris’s Vegas craft workshops, those stories you write for the workshop would count. Just write one story per week and turn them in to me (or Kris, if in one of her workshops.) — Yes, this challenge will go longer than 52 weeks if writers are still writing. The first week to start is April 14th, when the first prompt will appear. And first deadline…
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The Great Challenge
A New Writing Challenge… For the last few years I have done quarterly challenges that many people have enjoyed. And a lot of novels or stories have come out of those challenges that I enjoyed reading. So a new challenge, with a brand new form. One 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 talking about this one for a while. Here are the basics… Every week, on Teachable, a new story prompt will appear. That prompt will be a video prompt that will be short, maybe with a writing tip with it,…
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Just Finished… The Lonely Silver Rain
By John D. MacDonald… It was the last Travis McGee novel, published a year before MacDonald’s death in 1986. I think I have read it six or seven times now over the years, always taken in by how MacDonald did Travis. I have typed in so many parts of those books, studying the style, the simpleness of it, yet how complex and clear he wrote. At some point I will try a character like Travis. Someday. In the meantime, I practice a lot of what MacDonald did on my Cold Poker Gang series. And speaking of that, the new Cold Poker Gang series book is nearing an end, I hope.…
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We Learn From All Story
Even Television Shows… Kris and I started watching the revival of Magnum P.I. which was very similar to the old one. But this new version has a lot of heart and more themes. We were actually surprised by the quality, as it is clear many others have been since it just got renewed for a second season. On thing they did right was add in a couple of elements on the team. (If you don’t understand team in fiction, this would be a good show to study and then take the Teams workshop.) There is a detective who does a great job of slowly becoming part of the team over…
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Mentor Program Update
Almost the First of April… Which means the first quarter of the year has gone by and I had a number of people (who are not in the mentorship program I offered this year) ask how that mentorship program is going. The answer is simply, from my side, wonderfully. In fact, I am enjoying it a great deal. Here is how I look at it. In essence, I am here for the writer. Any time for anything to help the writer move forward. I let each writer set the pace and I do my best to be supportive, but not pressure. As it first started, I was back and forth…
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A Question About Ask Kris Anything Webinar
Got This Question Twice… So figured I would answer it here. Kris is going to do basically 13 live webinars starting in April, one per month, for the next year. With each webinar starting slightly early and running a little late, that will be around 15 plus hours of Kris answering questions about any topic anyone wants to ask her about. The information about this is two posts back. You can sign up on Teachable. The question I got twice was how did we figure the price? Well, a regular monthly workshop has about 40 videos of about 6 minutes each on average, counting the response and assignment videos. That’s…
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Do I Do This? Or That?
The Dilemma of Focus and Choice… I got a hunch this will be very familiar to many, if not all of you. Right now, in this new life here in Las Vegas, I have been focusing first (and with a lot of attention) on ramping up brand new habits of writing. Writing in the mornings. I have talked about that and actually it is working so far. But it is taking a focus. And I noticed today that the focus on the writing has taken away the focus on the running and exercise. Now, I am still getting over 10,000 steps per day. So that level of exercise is still…