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Ask Kris Anything Starts Sunday
And I Will Be Posting the Link to the Webinar Tomorrow… Instructions on how to send in questions ahead of time for Kris to answer during the live webinar will be posted on the site tomorrow as well. There is still room in this. You get a chance to ask questions of a long term professional writer, a major editor, a Times Bestseller, someone who has started two publishing companies, and someone who writes in most major genres. Webinar every month on Sunday at 11 am West Coast US Time. First one is this Sunday. And even if you can’t make this one, there will be 12 more. Sign up…
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#9 Pop-Up Free
The Author Problem… Pop-Up #9 on Teachable… I recorded it about four weeks ago before things went crazy with life, and so when I went back to put it up, it dawned on me that just about all writers need to hear this one. So we decided to make it free. And there is a story prompt for you to do a story from. Just don’t send this story in. I also loaded the first five of the twelve videos from the Pop-Up on YouTube. But the only place you can see all 12 videos is on Teachable. And speaking of new stuff on Teachable, we moved four regular workshops…
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Last Days of a Great Bundle of Novels
Space Opera Story Bundle… Only a few days left. Thirteen novels and a collection of space opera by some top writers. I am very proud to be a part of this one. So folks, give it a shot and if you get a chance, toss in a few bucks to the charity associated with this bundle, Able Gamers. To get the bundle, go to: https://storybundle.com/space ———– May Workshops Are Now Available… Only nine this month. A number of workshops are headed to Classic status in the next few days. I will announce them. But here are the workshops for May now available on Teachable. Class #41… May 7th … Depth #3: Research…
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Challenges Both Started
And Both Still Have Some Room… You can start any time with either the novel challenge or the short story challenge. On the novel challenge, you have to tell me when to start the clock ticking for the two months. (No writing ahead, finish your current project and when you are ready to start the next book, let me know if you are in the novel challenge.) For the short story challenge, the streak starts when you turn in the first story. There are prompts on the short story challenge each week and some stuff about novel writing on the novel challenge each week. And yes, you can move from…
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A Really Stupid Thing to Do
I Made the 13 Miles… Last fall, with great plans to keep dropping the weight which went by the way because of a bunch of great excuses, I had signed up for a half marathon today in the outskirts of Las Vegas. (Half Marathon is 13.1 miles… About 27,000 of my steps) But since the weight loss had failed completely over the winter and I have actually gained almost ten pounds since the heady days of sending in that application, I wasn’t going to do it. And also since I had not run one step in over three weeks and even had a bunch of days I didn’t hit my…
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Early Night
A Good Reason… Tomorrow morning, or actually in just over 7 hours, I will be crossing the starting line of a half marathon. Kris is teaching the mystery workshop, so I am going it alone. (She wouldn’t go that far anyway, even though she easily could if she wanted.) I will be run/walking. Last half marathon I did was in November the day after a nasty fall. I hope to improve my time on this one by at least thirty minutes from that one, even though I am still too heavy for real running. But got to start somewhere. Might as well start with 13 miles. (grin) See why Kris…
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Challenge Questions
As I Normally Do… I am getting questions on these new challenges. So here are some answers. — When can I start? With the short story challenge, you start when you turn in a story to me. That starts the clock ticking and each week you need to turn in a story following the instructions. Any time in the next month or so. With the novel challenge, you write me and tell me you are starting. Two months later from that date is the deadline, so you can make sure you are ready to start before you tell me, just don’t have any words written. This can be any time…
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The Great Novel Challenge
Because I Got So Many Questions… The Great Novel Challenge Starting Up For the last few years I have done quarterly challenges that many people have enjoyed. And a lot of novels or short stories have come out of those challenges that I enjoyed reading. So when we started The Great Challenge for short stories, I got a ton of questions about why not do a novel challenge as well for the novel writers. Kris and I have been talking about this one for a while. So we decided to just move it up and start it at the same point. — And yes, if you are signed up and paid…
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Costs of Creation
Crystal Ball Gazing… In one of the Futures workshops, part of an assignment was to look into their crystal balls and tell me which publishing trends they might be watching for the future. And what might develop in the future. Fun exercise and I have done it here a few times over the years. — A large number of the writers doing the assignment said they were watching AI audio. I agreed with that. Why? Because right now the costs of audio are too high. The cost of creation, in other words. And often that cost is in time rather than money. But to me time is by far my…
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Never Give Up
Much Harder to Say Than Do… But this week at the Writers of the Future I heard a lot of fantastic stories about success because the writer just kept pounding the markets. I remember that when I started out. From 1974 until 1982, stories out, no sales. And then I started following Heinlein’s Rules and sales started. First year I sold six short stories. (One to Writers of the Future.) But I wrote 44 and had them all in the mail. All the time. If a manuscript was rejected, I sent it back out often within hours. So rejection was a way of life. I put all the rejections in…