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Working on The Decade Ahead
In More Ways Than One… Doing a lot of work on the first part of the year-long class The Decade Ahead. In early February it will also include a Pop-Up that anyone signed up for the class will get for free. And speaking of the year ahead and the years ahead, today I got to see a blog I will post here next week from WMG Publishing about all the projects we did in 2019. It will blow you away, because it stunned even me and Kris. I will post it a few days after it is on the WMG Publishing blog. Also today Allyson sent me the tentative “Production…
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Fear and Publishing
Did Not Expect Some Comments… On the Great Publishing Challenge. It seems that writing and doing challenges on writing is popular, but not so much publishing. In fact, I got a number of comments about the fear involved. And I know for a fact that the fear comes from myths. And the fear of what might happen if you did it wrong. Well, you will do it wrong. I sure did when we started into indie publishing. I spent nine months putting up over 200 titles as fast as I could. I worked at it day and night. Mostly short stories, a few collections, some nonfiction, and a bunch of…
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I’m Doing The Great Publishing Challenge
Yup, I Will Be Documenting What I Am Doing… For those who want to jump into the Great Publishing Challenge of publishing 12 books in a year, you will also get my progress reports regularly as videos in the challenge. But I am taking it to another level, as you might expect. I will be publishing three times the challenge, or 36 books in one year. And if you are doing the challenge, you can watch me do it. But first off, if I was in the stage many of you are, here is how I would do the 12 book challenge. (Think how fantastic it would be that one…
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Some Pictures
We Had A Great Holiday Season… So thought I would post some pictures of a couple of the events. First off, on Saturday, Kris and I were joined by Val and Steph and we did a 5k charity run. Cold, but turned sunny. I walked a large part of it to take care of a strained muscle. Then we headed for a wonderful breakfast. So that’s the first picture. Then on Christmas Eve, Kris and I went out for a special dinner and the concierge in our building took a photo of us. Wonderful meal. Today I cooked us a turkey and while it was in the oven we went…
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A Tough Week…
For Writing Streaks and Challenges. Amazing how such a good time of the year can be so tough on writing. After all, it is the holiday season full of fun and family and travel. And that’s the problem… it’s the holiday season full of fun and family and travel. More streaks and challenges break in this last week before Christmas than any other time of the year. But thankfully, next week is the start of a new year and challenges and streaks can be fired back up then for the long winter. After forty years in this business, I have observed general times of the year where writing comes easy…
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Great Publishing Challenge
Something New… For much of 2019 we have been doing two challenges, one for writing novels, one for writing short stories. And a lot of novels or short stories have come out of those challenges that I enjoyed reading. And over the years I have also challenged myself to get books into print and many of you have watched me do that. So a new challenge that fits hand-in-hand with the Great Novel Challenge, The Great Short Story Challenge, and The Decade Ahead class. A challenge a little saner and a little crazier in the same breath. And again, the fee goes toward two workshop fees. Kris and I have been…
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Great Challenges
Lost Three This Week… Two writers from the Short Story Great Challenge and one from the Novel Great Challenge. And that is no surprise, considering the holiday stuff. In fact, to me, honestly, it is more of a surprise that more didn’t drop this week. And this next week will be brutal for many as well. However, the two in the short story workshop both had done over 26 stories in a row, so both of them got $900 in workshop credit. And over 26 new stories to market, use for promotion, get up indie. Total win! 26 short stories is more stories than most writers write in years. So…
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All Focus On The New Year
Everything Kris and I Are Doing is Focused on 2020 and Beyond… That focus on the new year seems to be taking up a ton of our time and effort over the last week. Tonight, on occasion, I heard swearing coming from Kris’s office because she was focusing on putting her calendar system for 2020 together. It is extensive. And complex. And she has been doing it for all of the thirty-plus years I have known her. And I really appreciate that she does the organization because, to be honest, I depend on her a lot to tell me when we are scheduled to do something here in Vegas. That…
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Friday Night… No Questions
The Decade Ahead Class for 2020… Got no questions today. Guess I got it moderately clear. I think it might be the best class we have ever tried to teach. Going to be fun, that’s for sure, with lots of videos every month, some assignments, and a special Pop-Up included as extra every quarter. So with new videos in the Shared Worlds class (more coming late next week) and assignments there all answered, and since I will be reading but not responding to Challenge stories until after Christmas, I will now go to bed early. Why? Because I have to be up in about six hours to go on a…
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The Decade Ahead Class Questions
Got a Number of Them… So thought I would respond here as well as individually. First off, all four quarters of The Decade Ahead class (plus the special Pop-Ups in each quarter that are included) will be focused in a balance on personal problems that affect the writing, craft work, and publishing business. Three parts working in unison and I hope balanced over the year. What I mean by personal work is productivity, getting to the computer, surviving life rolls, family issues, health issues, money, and so on. That is all a major part of building a writing career that will be where you want it to be in 2029.…