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Great Challenges
Behind On My Reading… But hope to be caught up this next week. Both novels and short stories. Looking forward to the reading, actually. Just had a few weeks of silly amount of things to do. The Great Challenge for a story-per-week lost two writers this week. They both wrote me and said they would miss. One managed ten stories, the other twelve. Fantastic! Now each of them has $600 in workshop credits as well as the short stories. So now both the novel Great Challenge and the Short Story Great Challenge have openings if you want to jump in. You sign up on Teachable and then let me know…
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Amazing Learning Chance
This Program Is Stunning for Writing and Publishing… I have to admit, when I took off for the university in Gunnison, CO to help Kevin Anderson with his new publishing program there, I was skeptical. I had been around numbers of university writing programs over the years and always left wondering why anyone wastes their time and money. So I went in with shields up and determined to keep my mouth shut about any normal university stupidity and politics because Kevin wanted this to work. Well, boy was I wrong. This program at Gunnison, both the Genre Writing MFA program and Kevin’s MBA Publishing program was amazing. Taught by real…
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Great Time in Gunnison
I am Kevin J. Anderson’s Guest Instructor… Gunnison, Colorado reminds me a lot of McCall, Idaho. Only this place has a university with an amazing publishing and genre fiction program. Kevin runs the publishing master’s program. Amazing program, just amazing, and Kevin might be the most qualified professor on the planet to run a publishing program. His program filled and those students are all smart and focused and nice people. It was fun getting to hang around with them for a few days. I’m headed back to Vegas (about a nine to ten hour drive). So if I have missed an email or not gotten codes to you for workshops,…
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Silly Busy
So Not Much Tonight… Working on the Trademark for Fiction Writers chapters to post here, on some copyright stuff, and having a wonderful dinner with other writers. And not least of all, doing some writing. So all good. Almost afraid to glance at another movie after that ugliness in endings yesterday. That movie really is a prime example why writers need to understand what their readers are expecting and answer the expectation in some fashion. And tonight had a fun discussion about one of the best ending writers to ever write, Zane Grey. My Thunder Mountain series is named after a Zane Grey novel. And I visit the same setting…
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Wow, What A Bad Ending
COUNTDOWN… Robert Altman Movie… Book by Hank Searls called “The Pilgrim Project.” Stumbled across it, about an alternate universe when the Soviet Union got ahead of the US in the space race, and sent three men to the moon. So the US rushed one man to the moon. Really bad graphics, but a lot of stars. So along comes the ending. Astronaut sort of panics, lands on the moon, wonders around with only three hours of air left looking for a shelter he was supposed to have landed beside. But we the viewers think he’s going to make it. That is our expectation. He finds the Soviet’s dead cosmonaughts and…
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If I Can Make It
I Have A Blog Anniversay… In August, 2011, I lost one of my best friends, book dealer Bill Trojan. I was the executor on his massive estate and I lost almost a year of my writing and one of my eyes to that experience. So to get back writing, I came up with Smith’s Monthly for my fiction and started blogging daily on August 1st, 2012. Smith’s Monthly lasted 44 issues before going on hiatus for another emergency, but somehow, through it all this last year plus, my blog has continued. Not a clue how. (And Smith’s Monthly is about to return. Go figure.) So on August 1st, if I…
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Licensing Transition and August Workshops
Some New Stuff Up… Including a Pop-Up on how to make publishing and submitting short fiction fun. All the Pop-Ups are still available, without the short story, in the Pop-Up bundles. But first I wanted to say that in the Licensing Transition, which will be going on all year, there are two new videos tonight, making it five so far, and that is just gaining speed. A bunch more by the end of the first month. Also, on the Las Vegas front, the Business Master Class still has some openings. It will be in October here in Las Vegas and you can write me for information. Going to be a…
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Out On The Town Again
Another Great Show Tonight… Las Vegas is an amazing place to live, simply because in fifteen minutes we can be from our condo to the arena where Hugh Jackman was performing. And then come home afterwards in a very short time as well. But tonight we decided that since we hadn’t gone to the gym today, we needed steps for our Fitbits. So we left an hour sooner than we needed to, parked in Mandalay Bay, walked through that monster casino, caught the tram to Excalibur Casino, walked over the sky bridge to New York, New York Casino, through the corner of that, and then across the sky bridge to…
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Trademark Book
About Three Chapters Done… I wanted to make sure I was going in the right direction before I posted them here. Less confusing to all of you if I don’t have to back up. (grin) So I will do one more chapter, then start posting the chapters will moving forward. Stay tuned. Trademark law is such a strange beast. But while you are waiting, keep learning copyright. Off to start the Business Master Class group list. If you are signed up, expect an invite tonight or tomorrow. And check your spam filter on Sunday before you email me saying you didn’t get the invite. (grin)
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Two New Lectures and New Pop-Up
Having Fun Publishing Stories… Pop-Up #10 is all kinds of tricks for writers who have trouble either sending out short stories to magazines or getting short stories up indie. Fun solutions, actually. And it is in both the Pop-Up #6-10 bundle and also the Pop-Up #1-10 bundle. All other Pop-Ups are gone except for the free one, #9. You can only now get #1-#8 in the bundles. And this new one has a short story prompt with it, as normal. (Nope, won’t count for a Great Challenge short story. (grin) Come on, you can do two stories in a week.) The two lectures are the first quarter of 2019 Tips…