• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Putting Up New Workshops…

    January and February Workshops…. They will be up on Teachable over this next week. But hold off until the 26th to sign up for any of them because on the 26th we will be announcing a workshop sale. Everything half price again in an attempt to keep all of you home, safe, and busy learning. Also, yes, we will be starting the new Collections Classes and those will be available for the sale as well. So stay tuned. I am working on getting them active, but tonight I worked on Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. So great to have that coming back strong in 2021. In fact, we are moving from quarterly…

  • Challenge,  Misc,  Topic of the Night

    Stay Home for the Holidays…

    I Know… I Know… You really want to see family, be with friends. I know. Just don’t this year. Just hang on until your turn comes to get the vaccine, and then hang on and stay safe until this clears. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Today over 3,400 people died from this. And that is going to get worse, a lot worse, before it starts to get better. This death spike right now is the start from the stupidity of Thanksgiving combined with winter. It was expected because so many people traveled and thought it would be all right just that once to be with…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Recommended Reading

    A Fantastic Gift to Give…

    Maybe the Best Gift to Give in this Crazy Year… To help your family and friends stay safe this holiday, give them the gift of a bundle full of great holiday books to stay home and read. Novels, short novels, and a ton of short stories. Plus a classic book full of the traditional L. Frank Baum stories. The Good Cheer Holiday StoryBundle if full great reading by great authors. And it is scary easy to give as a gift. There is just a check box that asks, “Is this a Gift?”  You check that and pay at least $15 for all ten books. You tell them who to send…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  publishing

    New Poker Boy Story…

    Published Today… Monday… In the WMG 2020 Holiday Spectacular. That’s right my story “Hidden Box Inn and Casino” is the Monday, December 14th story in the Spectacular. It’s a Poker Boy story and the newest. And it’s a holiday story, but not what you would think of as a normal holiday story. After all, it is Poker Boy. Here is what Kris said in the introduction to my story. (She writes an introduction to every story.) Hidden Box Inn and Casino by Dean Wesley Smith Genre/Mood: Light and fun fantasy After one of our bleakest stories, here’s one of our most fun stories. Dean Wesley Smith is a co-mastermind of…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    An Idea For Balance for the New Year…

    Combining Challenges… This is sort of a simple idea, but it has some catches to it. A lot of writers I know are setting writing goals for the new year. And publishing goals as well. I have my publishing goal half set, my writing not so much. And I have been focusing on exercise and on losing a few more pounds. (How cliche is that for a New Year’s goal?) So need goals there as well. So here is how I have been looking at each segment. Time. Exercise… I want to get back to 10,000 steps a day streak. For me that’s five miles. One to two miles are…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  running

    Went Running…

    Well, Sort of… Kris and I and Lisa did a live, in-person race this morning. One of the few the state has allowed to happen. We went out in 25 person waves every thirty minutes, and even inside each wave we were spread apart. Very safe. Beautiful day, sunny, in the 60s. Typical Vegas December day. I managed to run just over a mile of the three miles, walked the rest. Not exercising much for three weeks since the marathon and still slightly sore feet made this an easy one. Kris beat me by a long ways and she’s nursing a sore knee. And I think Lisa tied her best…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Working On A Story…

    Watching a Couple of Movies… So I am behind on email and will get caught up tomorrow after we do a 5k charity run. My feet are back healthy as they will ever be, so it will feel good to be back out. Plus we had two charity runs scheduled for tomorrow, but one was forced virtual. The one we are doing has groups of 25 going off (spaced out) every thirty minutes. Masks required and gladly worn. I am sure there will be pictures. I’m going to use tomorrow to ramp back up my amount of steps per day. I am doing a bit of muscle work as well,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Year of Changes…

    Now Looking at A Year of Doing… This last year has been hard, to say the least, on most people. And we are not done yet. Not by a ways, even with the good news today of a vaccine being approved in Great Britain, Canada, and today in the States. We have a long three or four months ahead of us before this even begins to turn around, especially with the non-mask wearers and their stupidity here in the States. For most of this last year it was impossible to try to plan anything. The Licensing Class we have going we just added a year. And supposedly now the Licensing…

  • Challenge,  Recommended Reading

    Holiday Stories

    All Kinds of Ways to Get Holiday Stories… I have said this before, and more than likely I will say it again. I really like the basic Lifetime Holiday Movies and the Hallmark Holiday Movies. I tend to look at and scan through, or actually watch completely, one movie a night. Kris doesn’t really watch that kind of movie, so its me, just enjoying the journey, often with a bag of popcorn, or on some nights a mug of hot chocolate. Best movie so far that is new this year on Lifetime is a time travel one, standard letters through time plot with a portal, but it worked fine. My…

  • Challenge,  News,  Recommended Reading

    Last Days of a Great Storybundle!!

    I Have a New Collection In This Bundle Just over one day left to get this bundle. This collection premiered in this nifty Space Opera Storybundle curated by Robert Jeschonek. A Billion Earths: A Seeders Universe Collection of five major stories in my Seeders Universe. And the Storybundle it is in is flat out amazing.  You don’t want to miss those books if you are a fan of space opera. You also get the book that started Kris’s incredible Retrieval Artist series. So don’t miss this. Just a day to go and the bundle will be gone. My collection is not published out wide yet, and won’t be for another…