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

Finishing Off The Year

January 1, 2016 /

 

FINISHING OFF THE YEAR

Hope everyone made it through the night and are starting this new year with some writing and fun.

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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 to be a writing focused year. Fun, great fun.

Then I headed out to the WMG store to do my standard end-of-the-year balancing of the books, since that’s my job. It was a great first full year at the WMG store thanks to Billy, the WMG Publishing sales manager.

If you are doing subscriptions with any of the WMG Publishing products or bookstores ordering directly, you are dealing with Billy and his team as well.

Staring up a second store in 2016 is going to be a lot of fun.

I got home, cooked dinner, then came in here and continued the great computer move. I am almost ready to start writing tomorrow. Getting this new computer (that was my writing computer) set and getting the old internet computer cleaned down.

E-mail settings and passwords are great fun. (grin)

Then also worked on workshop stuff, getting the January workshops set up. I’ll have that done tomorrow (Friday) and letters out to those who are signed up.

Lots of room in the January workshops.

I also finished Heinlein’s Rules book and put it all together. It will be ready to turn into WMG Publishing on Monday.

I will also have two Smith’s Monthly issues to turn in on Monday.

So a fun last day of the old year.

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New Online Workshop.

March 8th, Workshop #27… ADVANCED CHARACTER AND DIALOG online workshop.

This will be NOTHING like the other workshops we have done. This has a focus on how to use dialog to build characters and all the many tricks of advanced dialog.

Full description will be a few days away. But I will take sign-ups now.

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PATREON AND NEWSLETTER UPDATE

Those of you who have supported this blog on Patreon, I have sent you through Patreon a free fun gift that needs to be opened and downloaded by the 31st of January. Hope you enjoy it.

Those signed up for the newsletter, I will be sending out a special gift around the first of the week with the first newsletter. I promise it will be nifty and the letter will be short. (grin)

Still time to sign up. Upper right corner of the page.

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JANUARY ONLINE WORKSHOPS

All workshops have openings. They start on Monday. Any questions about any of them, just write me.

Class #1… Jan 4th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #2… Jan 4th … How to Write Thrillers
Class #3… Jan 4th … Adding Suspense to Your Writing
Class #4… Jan 4th … Plotting With Depth
Class #5… Jan 5th … Character Development
Class #6… Jan 5th … Depth in Writing
Class #7… Jan 5th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #8… Jan 6th … Cliffhangers
Class #9… Jan 6th … Pacing Your Novel
Class #10.. Jan 6th … Advanced Depth

Classic Workshops and Lectures are also available at any time.

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Topic of the Night: Heinlein’s Rules chapter above this

Chapter on the 5th rule above this.

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The Writing of Dead Hand: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery

Day 1…. 700 words.  Total words so far… 700 words.
Day 2…. 1,200 words.  Total words so far… 1,900 words.
Day 3…. 1,000 words.  Total words so far… 2,900 words.
Day 4…. 1,100 words.  Total words so far… 4,000 words.
Day 5…. 1,400 words.  Total words so far… 5,400 words.
Day 6…. 2,450 words.  Total words so far… 7,850 words.
Day 7…. 3,300 words.  Total words so far… 11,150 words.
Day 8…. 1,200 words.  Total words so far… 12,350 words.
Day 9…. 1,150 words.  Total words so far… 13,500 words.
Day 10.. 2,300 words.  Total words so far… 15,800 words.
Day 11.. 3,200 words.  Total words so far… 19,000 words.
Day 12.. 2,100 words.  Total words so far… 21,100 words.
Day 13.. 1,050 words.  Total words so far… 22,150 words.
Day 14.. 2,300 words.  Total words so far… 24,450 words.
Day 15.. 1,500 words.  Total words so far… 25,950 words.
Day 16.. 3,200 words.  Total words so far… 29,150 words.
Day 17.. 1,100 words.  Total words so far… 30,250 words.
Day 18.. 2,150 words.  Total words so far… 32,400 words.
Day 19.. 1,700 words.  Total words so far… 34,100 words.
Day 20.. 1,100 words.  Total words so far… 35,200 words.

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Totals For Year 3, Month 5, Day 31

Writing in Public blog streak… Day 872

— Daily Fiction: 00 original words. Fiction month-to-date: 31,200 words  

— Nonfiction: 1,200 new words. Nonfiction month-to-date total: 10,900 words 

— Blog Posts: 600 new words. Blog month-to-date word count: 14,100 words

— E-mail: 9 e-mails.  Approx. 200 original words.  E-mails month-to date: 644 e-mails. Approx. 33,700 words

— Covers Designed and Finished: 0. Covers finished month-to-date: 2 Covers

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You can support this ongoing blog at Patreon on a monthly basis. Not per post. Just click on the Patreon image. Extra stuff for different levels of support and I will be adding in more as time goes on. Thanks for your support.

Or you can just toss a tip into the tip jar with a single donation at PayPal. Either way, your support keeps me going at these crazy posts.

And thanks.
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If you would like to leave a tip just hit Paypal.me/deanwesleysmith (Goes to WMG Publishing account, but I’ll get it just fine.)

4 Comments

    • dwsmith

      January 1, 2016 at 2:10 pm

      Yup, actually on the main floor of the WMG offices. That’s why the big move-around over the last month or so. Making room for a big new store.

  • Dane Tyler

    January 1, 2016 at 11:26 am

    We had a great and Happy New Year here, Dean, and I hope both you and Kris did as well. Can’t wait for the new year. I have writing goals set which I think might help me get into the writing again. Will be watching CLOSE for critical voice and things making the writing either “important” or less than fun, too. All stuff I learned right here.

    Here’s to 2016. 🙂

  • Jes

    January 1, 2016 at 7:20 pm

    My New Years resolution for my writing is just to play, play, play. I am going back to the days of just writing because I like the surprise of it all and not worrying about the long vision. I have you and Kris to thank for the reminders that yeah, it’s supposed to be fun.
    Your plans sounds great.
    Happy New Year!