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Come Looking For Anger
Trolls Are Everywhere… But seems for me, they have to come looking. The reason is that I just ignore them and eventually, because they are starved for attention, they go away. Now, I know clearly that my opinions of professional fiction writing are only based on how it is really done, not on how some beginning writers think it should be done. I actually write and publish and make a lot of money, and that just pisses off a large part of the younger writers as well. But if a person doesn’t want to hear how it is really done, they tend to stay away from this blog and anything…
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Update on My 70 in 70 Challenge
Got a Shot at Making It!!! Not kidding. I might very well actually publish 70 major books in my 70th year on the planet. Kris and everyone at WMG Publishing is super supportive of this crazy idea, and have been from the start last November. And amazingly I have not forgotten the challenge, sort of just kept at it. At the moment I have 52 books published this year so far with 2.5 months left to go. (I consider major books as any book with my name on the cover. Novel, novella, collection, or anthology where I edited it. I also considered an omnibus a major book but am not…
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The Rule of Three
Most Writers Don’t Understand It or Use It… Today, at lunch, Kris and I were talking about a ton of ideas we have for Pop-Up classes we wanted to do for the Spade/Paladin Kickstarter we will launch next week. We like giving writers Pop-Up classes in the stretch goals if the campaign hits a certain amount. And we liked them to sort of match the genre of the campaign, which this time is mystery. We decided and laid out some really good Pop-Ups. For example, a Pop-Up titled HOW TO GET AUTOMATIC DEPTH. Yes, there are ways to do that. Honest. And they are fun and it is perfect size…
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Holliday Collection
Holliday Collection Class… Starting on September 7th. In nine weeks, meaning basically the first week of November, you can have a five story collection of original holiday stories for sale around the world. We do collection classes and starting in September is the holiday stories class. You learn about collections and how to write holiday stories and write five original holiday stories, plus do the cover and everything and publish it, all in nine weeks. You got to admit, it would be fun going into the holiday season with a brand new collection of stories out for sale. And if you turn in all nine assignments during the nine weeks…
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Career You Learned No Longer Exists
Happens All the Time, I know… But it seems to really be happening just lately in fiction writing. Or maybe I am just noticing it more lately. But in Publishing in the 1970s through the early 1990s, it was possible to learn the career and it would remain as you learned it. In fact, there are still old pro writers teaching those old ways to young writers even today, even though the writing career of those times no longer exists at all. Kris and I used to tell writers it was possible to make a living with your writing in traditional publishing, because that was the only game in town…
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Fantastic New Craft Special Workshop
How to Make Place a Character… Kris and I are watching a Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez series called ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING. Wow is it funny and twisted, very twisted, and we are only two episodes of ten into it. The really cool thing is that the apartment building in New York is a major character. Kris writes a series of stories and now a novel she calls Spade/Paladin Conundrums. You can see the stories that are available in the series here. She has been writing them for a good decade or more. They are all mysteries set at science fiction conventions. Kris has now finished…
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Last Kickstarter Workshops Housekeeping Post…
All Regular Rewards Are Out… Yesterday I sent out all the codes and information for the Special Workshops and regular workshops that were sold in the Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Kickstarter. And last week a new issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine went out to all old and new subscribers. All paper books are sent out and drifting in the mail, so they will be arriving as the mail allows. Tomorrow, all supporters will get the codes to the five Pop-Up writing classes that were in the stretch rewards. So watch for those tomorrow. And then finally, by the end of September, all six of the Pulphouse collections that were stretch rewards…
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Kickstarter Awards Starting Out
Please Give Us A Little Time, But… Some awards have already been going out. For example, Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #13 published last week and went out. And today and tonight I wrote everyone who signed up for one or both of the special workshops. If you did not get a letter from me, please check your spam filter. And remember, we sent the letter to the email you put on your kickstarter unless you told us otherwise. So check that as well. Then if you still can’t find the letter I sent you, write me. If you did get the letter on the special workshops, make your choices and get…
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I Love Being In StoryBundles
For a Number of Reasons… First, I love reading, as a reader, what the other writers have put in the StoryBundle. Usually takes me the entire time the bundle is up before I get done reading or looking at them all. But just as a reader who buys it, I love all the different books in a certain topic. Great fun. Second, it helps people find different work of mine that chances are I would write, publish, and forget. Needing a book to put into a Storybundle is a great incentive. And I have actually written a few books over the years just for a bundle. And it gives the…
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Fantastic Writing Advice by Keith Johnstone
Maybe Worth Really Looking At… I found it amazing. This advice came from a blog post Johnstone did back in 2020. Sadly, since that time he has done very few. He is 87 years of age and no longer teaching as far as I can tell as well. But he is an actor, a writer, and is known as one of the pioneers of improvisational theater. In essence, he is amazing. One of his many thoughts in this random blog post of misc. stuff was called Five Ideas. You can read the entire post here… https://www.keithjohnstone.com/post/_misc I was sent this part of the post and think it is amazing. Thanks,…