Fun Day!
US Thanksgiving Holiday…
We had intended to head out a 6:30 am to a park to the north of Las Vegas for a charity 5k run that started at 8 am. Intended was the operative word, but due to events the day before with business and other stuff, Kris and I both managed to stumble to be round 2 am. (I was a little later.)
So the towel was tossed and we got extra sleep. Then I cooked (with a ton of help from Kris) a turkey dinner and we were were joined by four great friends and we had a blast. Kris had baked a bunch of fantastic pumpkin pies and everyone brought something and far too much food was consumed.
We even had some fun discussions on writing at one point. And cats. And history and you name it.
So a great day.
Workshops, Challenges, and Classes Starting…
Kris has a three-story December writing challenge starting on December 1st. Jump in and see if you can write more stories than Kris in December. Sign up On Teachable
Starting on Tuesday, December 3rd, THE KRIS AND DEAN SHOW will run for eight weeks. Topic is PREPPING FOR 2025. Sign up at the WMG Writer Store.
The reason it is there instead of Teachable is because Kris and I will be doing a long video every week that is too heavy for Teachable. We will do that video together like we used to do the old Kris and Dean Shows at conventions. Then every week we will add four or so more videos on the week’s topic. Then the following week we will do a webinar that will be recorded if you can’t make the time. 8 weeks. Going to be fantastically fun.
It will only overlap the return of the Writer’s Block classes by a few weeks, so no issues there. (You can still jump into the Writer’s Block class, but you have to get both sessions. First nine-week session is almost all done and recorded, including the webinars. You have a month to go through it all. Second session starts January 7th and goes for two months. It seems to be a good class.
On Teachable we will be starting the BITE-SIZED BRANDING AND TRADEMARK on January 6th. Videos every Monday on the topics of Branding and Trademark. 4 quarters, 52 weeks of videos. That will make you more money over time than you can imagine. Jump into that one and remember that if you buy if for full price, you can also give a second one as a gift until the start of the year. So maybe two of you could go in together on that one.
The first three quarters of BITE-SIZED COPYRIGHT that we did in 2023 was given as stretch rewards for the Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter. See the updates if you are a backer to get the codes. And the 4th quarter is available for half price. Again the code is on the updates of the campaign for the backers to get the half price. And non-writers, remember if you backed the campaign you can give the workshops as gifts by sending them the code.
Also the new REGULAR WORKSHOPS are starting on the third with one workshop returning from Classic status to give folks a chance at doing the assignments with me. The returning classic is APPLIED DEPTH. The other five regular classes are WRITING INTO THE DARK, TEAMS IN FICTION, DEPTH IN WRITING, KILLING CRITICAL VOICE, and ADVANCED DEPTH. Again they all start Tuesday and Wednesday. Sign up On Teachable
And one special holiday sale we are doing is the LIFETIME EVERYTHING SUBSCRIPTION. Normally it is $10,000 for the over $60,000 in workshops and classes on WMG Teachable, but right now it is $4,000. (Low as we can go.) Write me if interested. An amazing deal.
HEINLEIN’S RULES
Here is the book (pictured below) that started it all and helped more writers become professional writers than any other book on the planet. In it Robert Heinlein has the most boring article I have ever read. And he knew it, so about seven or so paragraphs from the end, he said flat out that he doubted anything he had said up to that point would help anyone (he was right), so he decided to give writers his “business rules” and then said they are difficult to follow which is why there are so many aspirants and so few professional writers. (Totally right there.)
These rules, published for the first time here in the 1940s, caused all sorts of debate over the next decades, mostly between young writers stuck in the myths of rewriting. Remember Heinlein started in the pulps and no pulp writer rewrote anything. The rewriting myth had not yet grown in 1940s.
I was given a copy of this book in 1981 and started following Heinlein’s Business Rules from that moment forward.
Here on this day in the US of giving thanks, I would just say how grateful I am to have found this book and that Heinlein really wanted to help writers at the end of his boring article.
