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Responses
RESPONSES TO LAST NIGHT’S POST As I expected, my short little topic of the night last night made some people very angry. I’ll talk about it below. ——- THE DAY Made it to the WMG offices around 1:30 p.m., grabbed some banking things that needed to be done, then headed out to the banks and then a meeting. Got back to WMG around 4:30 p.m. after running another errand. I did some work around there for a time before heading out to the grocery store, home to take a nap, then dinner. Got in here to work on mail around 8:30 p.m. and then ended up doing some other stuff. Finally…
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Perspective
Topic of the Night: Perspective This is just a thought a friend had about why so many great writers are getting discouraged and quitting. He thinks it might have something to do with perspective, and I think he might have a point. The system when he and I came into publishing worked like this in general: You expected to spend five or so years learning your craft, getting rejections, then eight or ten years into the process you would sell a novel which would take a couple years to come out. Then, if you wrote regularly a couple books a year, in ten years you might be able to make a…
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Some More Perspective
PERSPECTIVE I have really been chewing lately on the reason why so many great writers are suddenly just stopping, quitting, walking away. Today a writer friend of mine came up with one possible cause. Above in topic of the night. ——- THE DAY Made it to the WMG offices around 2 p.m. and worked there until four p.m. and then went for a walk with two other professional writers. Yes, not back completely on energy, but enough to start exercising again. Felt good. Home to work on e-mail, then the workshop assignments, then I cooked dinner and watched some television and then took a long nap. Then more television. Finally…
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Time and Writing
TIME AND WRITING I have noticed this in the past, but just remembered it once again. When planning on returning from writing after a vacation or a sickness, or both in my case at the moment, the time you think you will return is never the actual time it takes you to manage to return. As I have always said, starting writing is far, far harder than just writing every day. ——- THE DAY Made it to the WMG offices around 1 p.m. and worked there until five p.m. I got all kinds of things moving, such as Smith’s Monthly, moved some shelves, and had great conversations on different…
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Topic of the Night: Lawrence Block’s New Writing Book
Last night I went on about how writers need to focus on writing, but not forget about learning. One great way to learn is read how-to-write books and books about the industry. When learning, always go to learn from those a long ways ahead of you on the road you want to walk. Simple rule. And with publishing and writing books, you read it and take what makes sense to you and ignore the rest. Every writing book should be treated that way, including the ones I have written. Take what makes sense and leave the rest, but don’t give the book away. Put it on your shelf and in a year or…
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Topic of the Night: Learning in the New Year
At the professional writer lunch today, a lot of the conversation on writing turned to how the industry is changing, bookstores, and so much more about the future. Great conversation. And tonight on a nifty program on the Travel Channel, I learned a little about how books were sold door-to-door after the Civil War and up into the last century. It was a major way books were distributed, and publishing company sales forces were basically door-to-door salesmen. When I came into the business in the early 1970s, the major publishing sales force had morphed into selling to bookstores, and only encyclopedias were sold door-to-door. Wow, has publishing changed. (grin) Now…
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New Year: First Day
New Year After much dithering and pestering people around me and working out details, I have finally decided to just go for this new challenge. All outlined in the Topic of the Night that is above this. ——- THE DAY Pretty standard up to a point. Headed up to WMG Publishing around 3 p.m. and talked with a couple of other professional writers there for a time before getting to work. I did a bunch of workshop stuff and getting the office ready for Monday. Then headed to the grocery store to get dinner and went home, took a short nap and cooked dinner. Then I got in here…
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Finishing Off The Year
FINISHING OFF THE YEAR Hope everyone made it through the night and are starting this new year with some writing and fun. ——- THE DAY Standard running around to banks and such. Lots of fun. (Nope…just kidding on that.) Then walked with two other professional writers and talked about this past year and the coming year. I’m pretty happy with the 1.2 million plus words I wrote last year. As Kris said in her blog about how writers are focusing back on writing this year, my focus is to increase my writing in 2016 as well. So are the other two writers I was walking with. It really is going…
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More Year End Stuff
More Year End Stuff Kris and I went to see Star Wars. No I will not talk about it here or anywhere for that matter. (grin) Stay safe on New Year’s Eve. It’s amateur night with the drunks. Dangerous out there. ——- THE DAY After the movie we had a nice late lunch. Then I headed up to WMG offices to work on year-end stuff there. Then home to cook dinner and get my 10,000 steps done. Haven’t missed since November 11th. Then in here to get the new chapter of Heinlein’s Rules up. Then after some television, I started into the big switch of computers. I bought a brand…
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Working On Year End Stuff
Year End Stuff Mostly a normal day. Dialog workshop announcement below. New chapter of Heinlein’s Rules book above this. And for fun I looked at how many words I wrote so far this year. Ready?…. 1,257,000 original words. 711,000 of that was fiction and nonfiction. The rest was e-mail and blogs. I did not count replies on the various comment sections I moderate. That’s Pulp Speed Two. (Pulp Speed One is over a million words, Pulp Speed Two is over 1.2 million words. Pulp Speed Three is over 1.4 million.) ——- THE DAY Got a bunch of walking in and planning for 2016, did workshop stuff, cooked dinner, got…