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The Voice
The Voice If you did not watch the finals on The Voice tonight, you missed not only some amazing, stunning music, but some good writing moments. And I’m not talking about the original songs they wrote. More below in the topic of the night. ————- The Day Lots and lots of running around, took the stray cat to the vet, left her for surgery tomorrow. She might not make it through, but it’s the best choice we and two vets think she has in making it. I’ll let you know. Spent a lot of time today fighting glass shelves over three windows into place in the new store. Also a…
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Three New Smith’s Monthly Titles
Three New Smith’s Monthly Titles Monday, the third issue in one week of Smith’s Monthly will go out. It won’t get me completely caught up yet, but getting closer. Issue #28 went out last Monday to subscribers and Patreon supporters. Issue #29 went out Friday. Issue #30 will go out today (Monday). The reason for the delay was me, and not on the writing side. So the wonderful folks at WMG convinced me to give up where I was getting delayed slowly over the winter and just let me focus on the new store and then writing. Thanks, Allyson, Judy, and Dayle for making these three issues possible so quickly. Now…
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Store and Workshop
Store and Workshop Another full day at WMG offices (part of which will soon be our new store). I worked on one of the new workshops as well as did a bunch of stuff in the store. Got the second temporary sign hung outside, got some final trim work done, did a lot of work on all the die cast cars. And then spent the evening sorting through and getting some non-sports cards ready. (They are art cards mostly. But we have a lot of Trek, Star Wars, X-Files and other cards. We have one area of the store that is nothing but non-sport cards. And dug out some old…
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A Complete Store Day
A Complete Store Day From the moment I got out of the house until I got home at midnight (I ate lunch and dinner up at the store), I worked on the new store (except for a short trip out to our original store to pick stuff up). Turned out to be about 11 hours straight. I will show pictures of the store when we open on Wednesday. But below is one of me on a ladder working to put up one of our temporary signs. (Our nice wooden signs won’t be in for about a month. There will be five of them on the front of the huge building.) To give…
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Bundle Ending
Bundle Ending in One Day!! So if you want to read my novel HEAVEN PAINTED AS A POKER CHIP, you can get it in a bundle with eleven other novels from other writers from Bundlerabbit. Click on the image to go to the bundle. Trust me, there are some great writers and great books in this bundle besides me. Just click on the picture to go to the bundle. Don’t Miss This One! The Day The door of yesterday’s battle continued the fight into the office. And at one point it bit Allyson, but she is all right. The door will find a home shortly, but there may be more…
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New Door and Other Adventures
The Battle of the Door Well, somehow, on a slightly rainy, somewhat windy, late afternoon a good hour from home, in the parking lot of a large chain home-supply store, Kris and I managed to wage a great battle to put in an entire framed interior door into my old van. And get the back door closed. Now, when I said we’d pick up a door while over in the bigger city, I just assumed it would fit in my trusty old van. Everything fit in my trusty old van. Not so much a framed interior door 36 inches wide by 84 inches tall. Suited for closing off a back room…
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Distracted
Distracted In case you hadn’t noticed, I haven’t written a word of fiction or nonfiction this month so far. I’ll talk about it in the topic below. Patreon Supporters and Smith’s Monthly Subscribers As planned, I got a recent issue of Smith’s Monthly out to subscribers and up on Patreon. The next issue should be out to subscribers and up on Patreon on Friday, and then with luck, the third issue in this run will be on Monday. Now it’s going to take me some writing to get caught up. ————— Topic of the Night: Distracted I haven’t done a word of writing this month. But honestly, that’s normal for me and…
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Topic of the Night: Pulp Writers’ Abilities
Pulp Writers’ Abilities I got a great question today about some of the basics the really prolific pulp writers did to be so productive. And how to go about finding out about a lot of their styles. How I have learned about so many of the older pulp writers is by reading book about them in their own words, reading books about the era, and just finding anything I could to read about the pulp writers of the 1920s to 1950s. A great first book to start is Frank Gruber’s The Pulp Jungle. Oh, trust me, you will realize how little you have given to be a writer after reading…
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Thirty Fantastic Years
THIRTY FANTASTIC YEARS Thirty years ago today I pulled into a driveway at an address in Albuquerque, New Mexico that Algis Budrys had sent me to. As I walked in the door, I met Kristine Kathryn Rusch and we have been together ever since. We had a wonderful day today just having fun and talking about thirty years and about years to come. I can’t even begin to imagine where I would have ended up if not for AJ sending me to that address. Certainly not here doing this. More than likely I would no longer be writing and would have just ended up working a golf course counter and…
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Some of My History
Some of My History Today, while working on a new project for this web site (see the topic of the night below), I came across a video of what it was like when I was skiing. Now, I was never as good as the guys they are showing here, but I skied with some of them regularly. And a number of others who were in the early days of the hotdogging, as we called it. I was into snow skiing and the fun of the early days of hotdogging from 1969 to the spring of 1972. Crazy fun. In person, I can tell you some wild stories. But watching this…