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Comments Have Been Interesting
My Best Advice I Can Give?… The comments over the past few days have been fun. Thanks, everyone who left a comment. I help a lot of writers learn in a lot of detail about specific areas of writing through the workshops. But if I had to boil it all down in some general way, here are my suggestions… 1… Read for pleasure. 2… Enjoy writing and telling a story. 3… Write only stories that you feel passionate about and that will entertain you. 4… Be passionate about wanting to keep learning. All the rest is a shrug. If you want my advice on the business of professional writing, that…
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Because of Last Night’s Comments
I Did a Tip of the Week… On how and why bestselling authors give bad advice to young writers. So in a very quick post here, I thought I would list a few reasons that come to me off the top of my head. 1… It was how the bestseller learned in the last century, so beginning writers should learn the same way, even though that is not how the bestselling writer actually works now. 2… It seems like a good way to train beginning writers (like the no adverb silliness). 3… The author is not talking to other authors, but to readers. (Writing as work and rewrite myth comes…
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Last Call On October Workshops
I Will Be Switching Them Out… And if you have a credit from the recent Kickstarter, just write me and I’ll get you into an October workshop if you want. Or you can use the credits at any time into the future. This month might be one of the best months of workshop choices we have ever offered. Sign up at Teachable.com And there are lifetime subscriptions available on Teachable as well if you decide to get serious and really try to take as many as possible. Class #37… Oct 2nd … How to Study Writing Class #38… Oct 2nd … Endings Class #39… Oct 2nd … Point of View Class #40……
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B&N In Trouble
The Sky Is Falling… Finally…And Again… Ever since the beginning of the ebook revolution, and then the collapse of the poorly run Borders, Chicken Little has been running around saying the sky is falling when it comes to Barnes&Noble. It wasn’t. For years B&N was fine, but clearly having issues and going the wrong way and not responding well at all to disruptive forces in publishing. (Huge understatement there.) But it was a sound business until one day this last year, it wasn’t. The bad management, too many losses, no direction, and too many CEOs finally caught up with it. Now some reports have B&N living on a $750 million…
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Sad News About David Willoughby
We Lost Another Great One in the Book Field… David Willoughby lost his battle with cancer. Now I did not know David that well at all. But I loved to see him coming toward me at a convention or a signing table. He was always cheerful and sometimes knew more about my books than I did. Actually most of the time. And this went on for decades. When he kept digging those books out of one of his bags for me to sign, it was always a joy. And he always felt bad that he had so many. I laughed at that and usually said it was because I wrote…
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Switching the Schedule To Daytime
Started Today… To get to writing and making things possible for me to write enough hours to do this ten novel challenge, Kris and I decided I needed to switch my schedule to writing during the day. It just fit everything about living here in Vegas. Just as writing late into the night fit everything about living on the coast. So today I got up a little before 7 a.m. and Kris and I were going across the starting line of a 5k race at 8 a.m. Now some of you know I have been trying to lose weight and I want to run a marathon in the middle of…
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Planning Ahead in Writing Time
Knowing the Reality… I got this great question from a writer asking me how I managed to remain so calm while getting behind on this challenge and having so much get in the way. I would say the answer is one simple word… Awareness. I was aware starting into this challenge that I had this last trip, and the workshop next month, and a ton of stuff to do that fell early on that had to be done and would take time away from the writing. I also knew I had to build brand new writing habits here in my new home, and that would take some time. But I…
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Great Fun Today
Taking a Very Short Trip... In fact, only a few days. Back in Vegas this weekend. I am flying first class and so got to go into the lounge area for the airline. Wow, nice, with all kinds of free food and comfortable tables and places to work. So since I had gotten to the airport early, I managed 1,300 words on the challenge novel in the lounge. Then on the two hour flight, my writing was only interrupted by them serving me dinner. (Yeah, tough life flying first class, but I can do that because flights in and out of Vegas are stunningly cheap if you know how to…
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The Three Negotiations Lectures Once Again
Making Sure They Didn’t Get Missed… Most of this is a post I did earlier about the three new Negotiations lectures. With all the craziness of the Kickstarter, I think it got lost a little. And Kris and I are very excited about them. And no worries, those of you who got the lifetime subscription to the lectures through the Kickstarter, in about a week I will contact everyone with any type of lifetime subscriptions through the Kickstarter and get you onto Teachable. So you will have more than enough time to start these new ones. Just have to wait until next week with Kickstarter. So here is all the…
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Four Hours Left!
Don’t Miss This One… Just four hours left and so far everyone supporting the will not only get their subscription and award, like workshops and such, but will get nine (9) extra books. And I will stop posting about this here when this is done. (grin) But if you want discounts in workshops and lectures, this is the last few hours to get them.