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Getting Ready…
To Start Right Here a New Nonfiction Book… This one is coming from the learning and experience at the Licensing Expo. For the longest time I told writers to learn copyright (I still do… critical). But I also said at times to not worry early on about trademark. Well, with the focus changing to licensing (which includes publishing), trademark for brands is becoming more and more important. And it is a tough area. I have had some training in it, and been refreshing that training. So here I am going to do a series of blog posts called Trademark for Fiction Writers. I am not a lawyer, so it will…
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Licensing Learn Along
Three New Videos Tonight… That brings the total now to 48 videos in the Licensing sections and another 40 plus videos in the Magic Bakery Classic Workshop that is included. So almost 90 videos and pictures on Licensing. Takes some time to go through, that’s for sure. All for $200. And I will be closing it for new sign-ups in a week, around the first of the month. All of you signed up, no worries, all the videos will remain. And I will be adding some more new videos this next week or so. So still a week to sign up at Teachable. In October, Kris and I and Loren…
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Allyson Is Back
And She Did Me A Great Cover… I am working on a second Cold Poker Gang mystery novel. I finished one that I haven’t even put in Kris’s typo finds on yet. That is called Heads Up. And I went right to the next Cold Poker Gang mystery called Ring Game. Well, before Allyson got sick, she had done me a cover for Heads Up. And since she is back and getting healthier by the moment, I found some art I thought would really fit Ring Game and she sent me a cover this morning. I love writing on a novel when I already have a great cover done. When…
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Writing Got Me Behind
And That Felt Great… First time in a while, so sorry if I owed you a letter today or Sunday evening, but Ring Game: A Cold Poker Gang Novel I am working on sort of grabbed me and woudn’t let go. I did three sessions today and two yesterday on the novel. Maybe 10,000 words total. What fun. And just as twisted a book as any of the others. I will be caught up on letters I owe people tomorrow and reading more challenge stories as well. But felt good to have the writing back solidly as it used to be before the move, so I just let it go. Also tonight…
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Updates
Kickstarter and Challenge Updates… First, the Kickstarter surveys (getting your email address and such) will be heading out in the next day or so. We need that information returned quickly if you backed the Diving Kickstarter, so we can get you your reward, plus all the cool stretch rewards. All the workshop stuff will be dealt with in a week or so, after the majority of the surveys are back in. But be thinking about which lecture and Classic workshop you want. (Don’t tell me yet, just be thinking about them.) The Great Challenge and The Great Novel Challenge are both still open. Two novels are in and only two…
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Saturday Night Copyright
Because No One Stops Here On Saturday… So I thought I would pass on a web site with a series of copyright lectures. This was suggested to me by A.B. Alvarez. They are a series of long lectures, like over forty of them, by Professor William Fisher and are offered under the Creative Commons License. Now copyright is a tough, dry area of the law for most people and Professor Fisher does not help that much. But he has some amazing charts and connections that work fantastically. So file this for next time you have a copyright question. http://copyx.org/lectures I spent some time watching a couple of them, including one…
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July Workshops Available
Including Both Writing Time Travel and Writing Westerns… A great list in July, but they start early this year, the 2nd and 3rd. So keep that in mind. You can still do the first week after the big US holiday, but the workshops start before the holiday. Lifetime subscribers, I will get the Writing Western workshop over into the subscription this next week. Interesting how many new workshops we have done this year. Four different Futures workshops, Emotion, Time Travel, and now Writing Westerns. Seven new workshops and the year is just half done. And four older workshops moved to Classic. So at $300 a workshop, just this spring came…
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I Did Another Podcast
A Second One When I Was At Writers of the Future... John Goodwin, the President of Galaxy Press did the interview. It was great fun. This one was about old pulp writers, rewriting, and clean first drafts, among other things. I think this is about 15 minutes, so worth the time to listen to me and John talk about the old writers. And I got a detail wrong in my old mind. Lester Dent was a real name who wrote 159 Doc Savage novels under the name Kenneth Robeson. Lester Dent was not a pen name. Max Brand was a pen name of Frederick Faust. Names, I am not allowed…
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How To Approach a Licensee?
Tough Question… And honestly, I don’t know the answer to that exactly because it will be different for every license you give. And different for every project you have. And different for every licensee. Some approach you, others you approach through meetings. So no right answer. For example, you might have a really nifty young adult series with teddy bears, so you would research and set up meetings with teddy bear companies. But you wouldn’t do that with your tech-filled sf series. (Unless it was a very strange series.) Robert Jeschonek wrote an amazing story about sentient underwear that was first published in Fiction River and then I bought it…
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Day One of Ramp Up
Partially Successful… So a good start. No writing, almost 12,000 steps, did some running, and got the food intake under control. Tomorrow I will add in the writing, get over 12,000 steps, and repeat the rest. Tonight, while walking, I set a new goal for myself, longer term than just 100 days for the weight. I want to hit 167 pounds, with luck by October 1st. If I do that, it will mean I have lost 100 pounds since my heaviest. So a great goal. I also want to be able to do ten pull-ups at that point at least. Can’t do one right now. Not a one. So got…