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I Wasn’t Rich
But I Made Learning The Most Important Thing… I got a comment from a person in a letter after my post about going and learning from long-time professionals. It was a passing comment this person and not made in any way bad. But it sent me laughing. The comment was basically “Good thing you had money.” The reference was to my early days in writing and me having money in those days was so far from the truth as to be on another planet. I had no money. None. Let me give you a few stories. I went to my first convention in 1982 and shared a ride with three…
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SF Plot Twist Bundle Almost Done!!
SF Plot Twist Bundle… Two Days Left…. My sf novel, Laying the Music to Rest, is in a nifty bundle with some amazing writers. Don’t delay grabbing this one. Some amazing stuff in this bundle and I am honored to be a part of it. But now it is almost over. Trust me, folks, if you are not familiar with Annie Reed, Robert Jeschonek, Blaze Ward, Ron Collins, Stefon Mears, and Eric Kent Edstrom, this is your chance. I don’t often recommend other writers, as most of you know, but I recommend all six of these incredible talents and buy their stories regularly for Pulphouse as well. And you get…
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Forcing the Help
Writers’ Communities… I keep hearing over and over about how other writers force writers to do something like get a book doctor or rewrite or whatever. This advice (99.9% of the time) is coming from beginning or unpublished writers. But these writers feel forced, like there is a gun to their head because it is their “community.” For some reason I mostly escaped this silliness when I was coming in. My mantra was always to learn only from those who were farther down the road than I was by a long ways. I wanted to learn from those writers making a living, having long careers, and so on. I sought…
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Some Challenge and Lifetime Questions Answered
Lifetime Subscriptions and the Challenges… I got some more questions I thought were good ones about the lifetime subscriptions, so here on a Saturday night I figured I would quickly answer them to hit my streak of daily blogs. (grin) And remind you about the short story and novel challenge starting in September. First, to the Lifetime Subscription Questions… In the regular lifetime subscription, you get all regular workshops and classic workshops. There are a lot of them. In fact, if you paid for all the workshops in the subscription, it would cost over $13,000. Wow! No idea there were that many. The key is that you can take workshops…
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Being Clear On Rewriting and Other Stuff
Got Some Interesting Questions This Week… So I figured for fun here on this fine evening I would just lay out in very quick points exactly what I believe about writing and how I write. Clear up some confusion (or make more, we shall see. (grin)) 1… I do not rewrite. I cycle back and forward through the manuscript as I write, thus ending up with a clean first (and final) draft. 2… I do not use ideas and haven’t for decades. I use triggers to get me typing with a character and I just entertain myself from there. (You guys have all followed that here through some of my…
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Reminder of the Lifetime Subscriptions Available Now
There Are a Number… I got some questions over the last two days about the lifetime subscriptions to different areas and realized that I couldn’t remember ever putting all the information about them in one place. Write me at dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com with any questions on these or to sign up. So here is all the information in one place. REGULAR WORKSHOP LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTION You get all regular workshops and classic workshops in this subscription. There are a lot of them. You can take workshops at your own pace and do assignments on the regular ones at your own pace as well. For new workshops, like the two new announced yesterday, they…
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Two New Regular Workshops Posted
How to Study Workshop and How to Use Tags Workshop… Both new workshops will start in September and both are available right now to sign up for in Teachable. I think both of these will be as amazing as the Information Flow workshop. And the Tag workshop might be as game-changing as Writing with Depth. Not kidding. And we will present it in the same example method so you can really see them for the first time. Both of these workshops have been added to the lifetime subscription for workshops. Lifetime subscribers are already in the workshops if you want to take them in September. Otherwise you can wait until…
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Pathological Need for Ideas
Something That Might Free You… I have heard lately from a few beginning writers who are afraid they won’t have enough ideas. Now I hate to admit this, but I have no ideas. Haven’t really even thought of an idea for a story or novel for decades now. Never occurs to me. I just write books, get inside the character, let the character tell the story, and find the ending when I type it. And as many of you know, I often just start with a title that is a mash-up of two other titles. Just a trigger. This is called writing into the dark. Yet I have heard from…
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Already Feeling Better
Very Annoying… But since I started eating very healthy, lower calories, more protein, and got my exercise going again, I feel better. I knew that would happen but every time I am shocked. I am over 5 miles walking per day (10,000 steps for my stride), a new streak starting, and have run at least a half mile two of the last three days. And the weight has started down. Shock. This is sort of like I feel with writing, and what I hear others expressing as well. Starting is hard, but once you start writing regularly, you feel so much better, so much more joy at the world. And…
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The Rewriting Myth
Got a Letter Today… A very real private letter from a very, very frustrated person who had just seen the Sacred Cow posts I did all those years ago. (Some are dated but they are all still here.) The writer was thanking me for talking sanity. The letter was heartbreaking, described how it had taken a year-and-a-half to write the novel and two-and-a-half more years rewriting and the writer still wasn’t happy with it, but wanted to move on. The writer was clearly having a long-held dream crushed by the myths that range from writing slow and sloppy to rewriting and needing editors and agents and so on. Once again,…