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A Copyright Question
Going To Phrase It A Little Differently Tonight… Fact: You sold all rights to your book, signed them all away in some contract that seemed like a good idea at the time. Your book no longer exists in your magic bakery. Now, a corporation owns your book, is doing nothing with it, and you can’t get it back. It is an accounting number on their financial bookkeeping. All your work is gone. Poof. Because you made a bad decision and signed over all rights for the life of the copyright. (All the writers I saw in Barnes&Noble did that, sadly.) Question: When can you or your heirs publish that book?…
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July Workshops and Copyright
Still Time to Jump In… Kris and I have been working some on the two new regular workshops, Information Flow and The Magic Bakery, and they are turning out really nifty so far, in my opinion. The Magic Bakery will help put this business in complete perspective. And Information Flow is going to be tough, but an eye-opener. And I had a question yesterday that made me realize that writers just don’t know much about the aspects of Public Domain, and thus Copyright. So if I asked the question… “Can your heirs still sell your work 71 years after your death, when your work has dropped into the public domain?”…
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Making A Living With Short Fiction 2018
Back By Popular Demand… Actually, I am bringing this forward from May 2016 and it is mostly unchanged. I will put in BOLD ALL-CAP ITALICS when I have changed something. ———— Can You Make a Living Writing Only Short Fiction? Every year or so I look at this topic once again, do the math, see if anything has changed over the last couple of years. And now, here in May 2016, things have changed some, but in my opinion it would still be possible to make a decent living writing only short fiction. Why do I like this topic? Actually, because I love short fiction, meaning any story under around…
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Second Day of Exercise and Fun Pictures
Just As With Writing Restart… I am ramping up slowly. I spent my first week here in Vegas resting and working around the condo. Kris would go off to one of the gyms to run and I would go with her and explore the area or do errands. This week, starting yesterday, I got on the exercise clothes (what a slightly overweight 67-year-old wears… sweat pants and a baggy tee-shirt) and went with Kris to the gym. I walked the track while she ran, doing about three miles. And actually ran about 1/8th of a mile to see how it felt. (awful) Today I went again with her and ran…
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To Tired to Care
Not Sure Why I’m So Tired… But Kris laughs when I say that. Anyhow, got back this early evening from actually walking and doing a tad bit of running on the track for the first time, had a small dinner, and then fell asleep on the couch. Three or so hours later I woke up enough to watch a little television. I then did some email and now am writing this before heading off to bed. Exhausted. Seems all the moving and months of short night’s sleep and all the trips back and forth from the coast to Vegas have finally caught up with me. Night. (And once again I…
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Kris’s Website Is Down
We know about the site being down and there are a host of wonderful people working on it as I type this. It should be back up by tomorrow (Monday) just fine. Ahh, aren’t these things fun. (grin)
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In The Heart of Forgetting
This Week Is Smack In The Middle… …of the Time of Great Forgetting. Actually, might be a little closer to the end, but it clearly is the worst week. I can see it in the number of assignments turned in, in the number of comments about posts, both in letters and online, and in the lack of chatter about writing on different lists. For those of you who have not heard me talk about this fascinating time for writers, it is when all thoughts of the New Year’s Resolutions have vanished and when writing seems to be something you will do tomorrow. It starts early May and runs through late…
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What I Learned
A Very Quick List of the Main Thing I Learned from Different Writers… Just the main thing I learned from each of them that sticks with me… I learned much more from each one, of course, but this is the main thing from each that shaped me into the writer I am today. Why I remember each of these lessons is because I learned them deep. Very deep. Ray Bradbury… I learned from Ray that writing stories one-a-day or one-a-week does not lower the quality of the story or its value. Harlan Ellison… As I said last night, I learned it is possible to write clean, one-draft award-winning fiction. Algis…
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Another Picture of the New Office
Under Construction… Life goes on. A second blog tonight. I worked today with my trusty companion, Gavin, to put together another new desk for my office. Tomorrow I start exercising. And maybe do a little writing on a story for a charity anthology honoring another friend who just died. And some workshop stuff for the Master Business Class. Kris got this picture right before we headed out for lunch.
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Harlan Has Left The Building
Harlan Ellison Died In His Sleep… I am sure that over the next few days you will hear good and bad things about Harlan, and a ton of Harlan stories, as people like to call them. I have my share as well. Not going to give you many. At least not here. I considered Harlan a friend. Kris and I got to know him in 1987 when we started up Pulphouse and he was a friend and mentor to us for a lot of years. And I had read his writing for years before that, including The Glass Teat columns. We were not in touch much the last decade because…