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Novel Finished
Novel Finished Yup, finished the second novel of the month. Of course, the last one I started last month, but got this one done in ten days. ——- The Day I paid no attention to the day today, honestly. Got home from being out doing errands around 5:30 p.m. and I worked, off and on, until 4:30 a.m. on finishing the novel. Mostly on. I wrote about 7,100 total words and cut out about fifteen hundred total, which isn’t bad for me. Book came in just under 40,000 words. The Taft Ranch: A Thunder Mountain Novel will be in Smith’s Monthly #33. I will be turning in the issue to WMG,…
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Fun Workshop Poll Results
Fun Workshop Poll Results Thank you, everyone, for chiming in on what might interest you on the three workshops Kris and I were talking about. Very clear that the Expectations (writing on the rails) workshop and the Mystery workshop were the two big winners. More on that below.. ——- The Day Got out of bed late and missed one meeting and from that point on the afternoon seemed to be behind. So I did some work in our new bookstore and then headed home to take a nap. Kris cooked dinner, I did dishes and did e-mail and then went to reading a book I’ve been looking forward to reading.…
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Some New Workshop Ideas
New Workshop Ideas After meetings this afternoon, Kris and I headed over to the valley to do some shopping, have dinner and see a movie. On the way back we got talking about ideas for new workshops. See topic of the night below on a few of them. ——- The Day WMG Publishing meeting at 2 p.m. and then around 4 p.m. Kris and I headed for the valley. We live on the Oregon Coast, so at times we go into the Wallamette Valley to just get away. So we did some shopping, had diner and saw a movie. Got home around 12 p.m. and I did a little e-mail,…
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Wrote Too Much
Wrote Too Much Lost track of time while working on the novel and didn’t leave myself time to do a topic of the night. Ahh, well… maybe tomorrow. ——- The Day Tuesday, some errands, almost finished the template on my short story collections. Store at 6:30 and home by 7 to take a nap, then cook dinner. Then I worked until 11 p.m. doing online workshop assignments. Then I moved over to the writing compute and managed 1,300 words before heading to watch television around 12:30 a.m. I had a break in the middle of that somewhere to play with a cat. Then after watching too much television, I made…
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Cost and Benefit of a Cash Stream
Cost and Benefit of a Cash Stream Around here and with other writers and at WMG Publishing, decisions are constantly being made about the costs and the benefits of chasing a new cash stream. Thought I would just do a bit on the basics and then maybe come back some night with a full topic. So see below. ——- The Day Standard Monday with errands to do, then got to WMG office and worked on a cover for a collection I am going to be doing. Actually lots of collections, but worked on the cover template. Almost done. Then home to take a nap and cook dinner. Then in here…
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Goodbye Miss Thang
Miss Thang The very sick elderly cat we have been trying to get back to health for the last two months didn’t make it. More on all that below. ——- The Day Started the day off with a visit to the vet. Then back to WMG store for the writer’s meeting and lunch in the back area. It feels sort of strange, actually, to have a writer’s meeting in a store I own. In my first bookstore, both the science fiction club and the writer’s workshop met in my store every week. One on Tuesday, one on Thursday. That was in 1982-1984. Things go around and come around again in…
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A Book I Read and A Challenge
A Book I Read and a Challenge I get some wonderful recommendations from readers of this blog about books I might be interested in. And the readers are often right. Thanks, folks!! One such recommendation was for a book titled Paperback Confidential: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era. Author is Brian Ritt. The book has only been out a few years and it had passed me by. So when it was recommended, I got it at once. I love history of writers. So a discussion on it below and some interesting things about how this kind of thing works for me sort of like what many of you say this…
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Day 1,000
Day 1,000 Now ain’t that a kick? 1,000 days of writing this blog without missing a day. 95 more days before it becomes three years of counting. Now that’s a streak. I’ve talked about the power of streaks, but going to do so again in the topic below. ——- The Day Got to the office around 2 p.m. and then went off and did errands, then walked with two other writers, getting back to the store around five. I worked until about 7 p.m. in the new store, then home to cook dinner. Then assignments, getting that done around 11 p.m. and taking a nap before going to watch some…
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Author Earnings Report
AUTHOR EARNINGS REPORT Today a new Author Earnings report came out form Hugh Howey and Data Guy. Normally these reports are amazing, especially watching the trends from quarter to quarter over the last year plus. But this time they went even farther. They got 82% of all books sold in paper, audio, and ebook on Amazon. And they talked a lot about the dark matter, the huge area of books that sell very, very few copies yet make up a lot of the volume on Amazon. This report is a stunner. Take your time and read it. I’ll give a few of my opinions below in the topic of the…
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First Day
FIRST DAY As expected, knowing I was going to get started today on the run up to ground effect writing, I gave the writing more attention, meaning I actually thought about it during the day. And between now and the end of August, I will go back to detailing out the day as I have done at times in the past. Skip it if it bores you. ————— The Day Made it through a bunch of errands starting at 1 p.m. and then to the regular Wednesday meeting by 2:30 p.m. That lasted until 5:30, but good stuff happening. Then I worked upstairs for about two hours, including two trips to…