• Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  publishing

    Kickstarter Campaign in the Works

    Working On and Off On It All Weekend… New WMG Holiday Spectacular 2020. If you remember from last year, this is the cool idea Kris came up with to basically do an Advent Calendar with fiction. People who sign up get an original story a day to read from November 26th to January 1st. What a fun way to end this year, huh? Over 25 professional writers wrote stories for basically three books. 37 stories will be sent out in 37 days. And then the books will come out next October. In fact, the three books from last Holiday Spectacular 2019 will be released this week. How cool is that?…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    November Workshops Now Up

    All On Teachable… December workshops will be also up and able to sign up in a few days. And last call to jump into the October workshops this weekend. They will vanish on Monday or so. I initially was going to push back the start date of the November workshops until the 10th, but then decided that the 3rd is fine because most people don’t start workshops for a few days anyway. And the first weeks are normally the easiest. For those who have been living in isolation, the 3rd is the US election. So here is the list of the November and December workshops. I am pretty sure that…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  running

    Filler Post…

    Meaning Nothing… Day 2,991 if the blogging streak. It’s Friday night. I hate Friday nights. Too many years of tending bar to ever like Friday nights. Of course, my last Friday night tending bar was in May 1987. Think I would be over it by now, huh? (grin) I spent the day doing workshop stuff, doing some reading, doing a bunch of writing, recording a workshop, and getting some miles in exercise. Still 12-14 degrees above normal here, so making it almost impossible for too many miles. But I am getting some miles in. I have very, very bad feet (from being too poor as a high school kid to…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    One of My Favorite Pictures…

    And Favorite Trips… Even though cows did explode and I almost got injured or killed… Grandmaster Jack Williamson fell in love with a story I turned into the very first quarter of Writers of the Future 37 or 38 years ago and fought to have it in the first book, even though I’m pretty sure Algis Budrys wasn’t so certain about the story. I didn’t learn what Jack had done until a party where I met Jack for the first time at Writers of the Future. To me, Jack Williamson was a god. He had published his first short story in 1928 and published continuously since. I was afraid to…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Having Fun In Week #2…

    Of the Making Money Workshop… I just spent the last few hours recording the second week of Making Money with Your Fiction Writing Workshop. Oh, my, I think I was punchy. (grin) But for me it’s a fun topic and I was having fun. I also realized while showing off an issue of Smith’s Monthly that by the time #45 comes out, it will be 2021, and Issue #44 came out in summer of 2017. Wow, 3.5 years between issues. Sort of been a crazy time, that’s for sure. But I am so excited about bringing it back. I have about eight or nine novels done and waiting to go…

  • Cave Creek,  Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing

    Writing Update

    Some Stories and Progress on Card Sharp Silver novel… I’ve been kind of dinging along on the Cave Creek novel, doing a couple thousand words per night. Also doing some cat stories with my new series character Pahket Jones. She’s in the Poker Boy universe and so far he has appeared in one of her stories and she has appeared in a new Poker Boy story. I’m having fun. Hard not to in the Poker Boy Universe. The Cave Creek novel, Card Sharp Silver, will not only be in a future issue of Smith’s Monthly, but will be sent to everyone for the Shared World Class, along with some bible…

  • Challenge,  Cover Fun,  workshops

    Very Impressed…

    The Covers From the Covers 101 Workshop… The writers who managed to get through to the last assignment of the covers workshop produced some stunning book covers. The Covers 101 Workshop is a step-by-step process workshop in design and layout of covers. I just got done earlier tonight going through Assignment #5 in the Covers 101 workshop (first time it was offered) and basically all were professional covers that would sell books. I showed Kris a few and she just said, “Wow!” A couple writers, as expected, thought they could write sales copy for the back cover without training and failed, horribly, but this wasn’t a sales copy workshop, it…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Money and Kickstarter Workshops Starting

    How To Make Money With Your Fiction Writing… Yup, that workshop starts on Wednesday this coming week. Should be a very interesting one, but don’t take it if you want to learn about advertising on places like Facebook and so on. That is not how to make money past a moment in time, maybe, if you are lucky. We’re not even hardly mentioning that. This workshop is how to make money over the long haul and build the income. If you first thought is that you know how to do that, you really need this workshop. If you first thought is you can’t imagine what we will talk about besides…

  • Challenge,  Misc

    Up At 5:30 AM…

    For a Run… I have a running group I join sometimes on Sunday mornings and for the first time in a month it will be cool enough for me to go tomorrow morning. Only about 76 degrees as the sun comes up. We are still record heat here. After this summer 76 will feel like I need a coat. (grin) Got to be out in Summerlin at 6:30 a.m. and that’s thirty minutes of driving, so up even earlier. So this is a filler post tonight. Daily streak at 2,984 blog posts without missing a day. My brain can’t really grasp that number to be honest. And oh yeah, worked…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  workshops

    If I Owe You A Letter

    In the Last Three Days, Hold On…  I will get caught up today. No problem, I’m just taking some breaks and doing other things. Also about to do some videos in the Decade Ahead class and more cat videos. So next week check those out if you are in them. Again, the Decades Ahead will go through all of 2021 now. No chance in hell any of us can plan while swirling in this mess. The key with all this is just get your head down and keep writing. And make sure you vote. Horror and Historical-focused Science Fiction special workshops are starting on Tuesday. And Making Money with Your…