• Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Kickstarter Campaign

    A Fun Ad

    For the Crimes Collide Kickstarter Campaign… Gwyneth at WMG Publishing took the video that Kris and I recorded for the Crimes Collide Kickstarter and added all the nifty music and books and such. Then today for an ad promoting the campaign, she did a nifty video that is even more fun than the original video, all from the original video and dealing with mystery and crime, the focus of the campaign. This is the kind of thing that can be done when you are not afraid to try things and have fun and play. Think of this as an example of the billions of ways to promote a book or…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    A List of Stories So Far

    Even Though No Covers Yet… Thought I would list the short stories I have finished. The titles and their series, if any. I think the first 17 are all in series, so clearly had some stories to tell in my series, although one is a brand new series. More than likely in a few months, I will be telling non-series stories as well, plus maybe even some new series as they come up. All titles came from my title sheets to start, a few got changed as I went along. So here are the 17 stories as of the one I finished a bit ago. Jan 1st… The Curious Reasons…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign

    Challenge Still Going

    Brain Still On Novels For example, tonight I wrote a 3,600 plus word Thunder Mountain story called “Lost Canyon.” (Saw the phrase on some woman’s sweatshirt tonight at dinner and figured it would be a good Thunder Mountain story. So I wrote it.) Story works great and I wrapped it into a short story just fine and dandy. And if you don’t look too closely after the cute ending, you don’t ask too many “But what happens next?” I sort of explained in the story what happens next, sort of. Or I pretended I did, but in the novel it wouldn’t work out that way, of course. But that wraps…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign

    Crimes Collide

    Basic Information On Crimes Collide Below I spent all day (except for a very short time watching football) working on CRIMES COLLIDE. Thank heavens I have all my stories that have been in Smith’s Monthly in a spread sheet. I would look at a story title, then grab the issue of Smith’s Monthly it was in to try to remember it and then see which one of the five books it went in and in what order. Kris already had her stories done and in order and had set some of the basic subjects for the five books, so I was putting my often very between-genre stories into a certain…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign

    Update On Challenge

    Haven’t Missed A Story Yet… But one was almost four thousand words of a really fun novel that I couldn’t even wrap into a short story. But since I am writing novels as well in this challenge, it counts and I will have the rough on Patreon soon for some of you who are interested to see a novel start that not even I could wrap into a short story. The last week has been bumpy, beyond words, but I still managed to go 14 for 14. Not a clue how. I have not had the time to do the other stuff with the challenge, like do covers, for them,…

  • Challenge,  News

    Dave Farland (Wolverton) Has Left Us

    Yes, Tonight It Is Sadly Official… Dave was kept alive for the day until all his children could get there and say goodbye, then he moved on. Damn it all to hell. Way, way too young. Dave and Kris and I were friends for 37 years. We did so much together over the years, it is impossible to remember it all. Over the last few years, Dave and I had some fantastic conversations about writing and our different approaches to teaching. It was great fun for both of us, great discussions, considering that back in the day, we were in writing learning groups together and learning from each other all…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing

    Writing Challenge Update…

    January 12th, 2020 Twelve days, twelve new short stories. (And yes, will start getting them to Paetron shortly. Just been stupidly busy and I have two projects to finish first in the next two days.) I also have not yet done the covers for ten of them. (Again, just too busy.) And a bunch of these would not have been written if not for the challenge. In fact, the story I wrote last night starting late and dead tired Kris said was wonderful and she thinks Queen would take it. I was shocked. Some of the others are clearly starts of novels I wrapped down to end as a short…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    Crimes Collide Kickstarter

    Doing Fantastic! We funded in an hour and then in the first eight hours hit the first two stretch rewards. Amazing and thank you for helping us on this. I really hope we can get to all ten of those Pop-Ups in that series. That would be so cool. So since I just finished a short story that I started at 12:30 because the day did not allow me to get close to my writing computer before then, I am just going to give everyone here all the information again about the Crimes Collide campaign, plus the video. Mystery Collection of 100 Stories… Kris and I liked what happened last…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Kickstarter Campaign

    Crimes Collide Kickstarter Is Live!!

    Watch the Video! I have linked to it below here. Much fun and a ton of great workshop stuff for writers and a ton of great reading for readers. And since at times we do the half-price sales on workshops, we put some half-price workshops on the campaign as well since there is no telling when we will have another sale. And Crimes Collide is a really, really fun set of books. Kris and I are both very proud of it. Crimes Collide Kickstarter Campaign.

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    CRIMES COLLIDE Kickstarter

    Mystery Collection of 100 Stories… Kris and I liked what happened last year with COLLIDING WORLDS sf collection, so we are doing it again with mystery. Same format… twenty mystery stories per book, ten by her, ten by me, five big books total. Damn these are fun to do. And the Kickstarter has some really fun surprises. Lots and lots of books and stories for readers, of course. Every award included all five of the CRIMES COLLIDE books. Every reward, even the workshop rewards. And wow do we have some great stuff in this one for writers. Two Special three-week workshops like we have been doing. WRITING MYSTERY ENDINGS and…