• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Eight

    WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Eight: Day Five The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Five (7,000 word day) Once again made my goal for the night. I paid a ton more attention to the challenge today than I did yesterday. Seven thousand words is a serious number of words in one day and I gave the writing of that much the respect it needed to make it happen. Counting 3,000 words for Day…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    More on the Time of Great Forgetting

    More on the Time of Great Forgetting Last night I mentioned the Time of Great Forgetting for writers and a number of writers wrote me privately wanting to know more about what I meant. Well, basically, the Time of Great Forgetting is when a part-time writer’s attention is taken by life in general and all New Year’s Resolutions and streaks and challenges are forgotten. This normally each year starts around the first to middle of May and runs until the last of July when writers suddenly remember their writing and then fight to restart. Why May? Sunshine, gardens, kids graduations, golf, spring sports, and on and on and on. For some…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Seven

    WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Seven: Day Four The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Four Once again made my goal for the night. Barely. And wow was this a ton harder than yesterday. The next three days ought to be very interesting, to say the least. Counting 3,000 words for Day One and 4,000 words for Day Two, 5,000 words for Day Three, and 6,000 words for Day Four, I needed…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Time of Great Forgetting

    Time of Great Forgetting From the looks of how the April workshops sign-ups are going, we are entering into the time of great forgetting for writers just slightly ahead of time. The Time of Great Forgetting is when the year-end resolutions for writers are long forgotten and the weather is getting better. Usually this forgetting time for writers without a full-year focus doesn’t start until late April and then runs through until the middle of July. I always find it interesting that I am ramping up as other writers are just sort of drifting away. But I am a professional year-round writer. I have my bad months, sure, but I never stop…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Six

    WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Six: Day Three The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Three Once again made my goal for the night. Barely. Counting 3,000 words for Day One and 4,000 words for Day Two, and 5,000 words for Day Three, I needed to be at 12,000 words or beyond. Hit that once again. I had 1,800 words in the bank before today but didn’t want to use the words…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Five

    WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Five: Day Two The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Two Once again made my goal for the night. Counting 3,000 words for Day One and 4,000 words for Day Two, I needed to be at 7,000 words or beyond. Hit that. The Day Managed to crawl out of bed around 12:30 p.m. and get to the grocery store and then to WMG Publishing before 2 p.m. to…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Four

    WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Four: Day One The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day One Here we go. I’m going to detail out my day so that anyone reading this can extrapolate their own days and see how it works. The idea is to help others with similar challenges like this. And help writers with just controlling their own fears and time. Side Note First on Structure On the comments on…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Seven Day Novel Challenge Started

    SEVEN DAY NOVEL CHALLENGE HAS STARTED Novel challenge has started. See details of the day in the post above. And I also have managed to put up the reading order of all 36 Poker Boy stories. And where they can be found besides stand-alone. The full list is under the reading order tab above.  ———– Note Since I am writing a Thunder Mountain novel, I am putting up the books from the series as featured books of the day. They all stand alone, but there is a reading order above if interested in starting from the beginning. Tonight is book four in the reading order. ———– FEATURED BOOK OF THE DAY…

  • On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Three

    WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Three This is going to be fun. I want to repeat that often.  The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Ready to Go I’m going to start writing tomorrow. Honestly, I could have started today without much problem. But I scheduled starting tomorrow because of the work day outside of writing that I have on day three, where I will need to do 5,000 words. Day three…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Day Before The Start

    DAY BEFORE THE START All work on Smith’s Monthly formatting. And went through Kris’s comments on my last finished novel and got all that in. Just need to write an introduction to get that issue of the magazine turned in.  ———– THE DAY Did errands and worked on formatting Smith’s Monthly, the issue that has a Thunder Mountain novel in it called Grapevine Springs. So got to go through a Thunder Mountain novel before the writing challenge starts tomorrow. That was lucky. Sort of put the series back solidly in my head. Once again I want to put here the nifty cover for the book I am going to do in…