• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    July Through October Workshop Schedule Posted

    And Yes, Two New Workshops Are There… Both Information Flow and The Magic Bakery workshops are starting in July. Lifetime subscribers, the workshops are already in your subscription and no need to sign up. You can take it in July as it unfolds per week, or do it at any time after July when you want. Everyone else, to sign up for any workshop, just go to Teachable. Or if you have a credit you want to use, write me and I’ll give you a code to get in. Full list of workshops from July through October is now posted. With a couple spots left open for new workshops later in…

  • Challenge

    Blast From the Past Photo

    Just For Fun On This Saturday Night… I thought I would put up an old photo. I’m going to be rounding up old photos from various places around the house to put into storage because of the move. So for the next few nights I might post a few old photos here for fun. Here is one taken by Alan Bard Newcomer at one of the very first weekly writer’s workshops we held in Eugene, OR.  January 1987, before we thought of starting Pulphouse. About eight months after Kris and I met. (Notice my dark hair and her short, dark hair.) Also take note of how small the table was.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    We’re Lucky In Practice

    Writers Are Very Lucky… We can practice and get paid for it many times. I realized that once again as I was driving back from a poker practice session at a local casino. I went to the $45 buy-in tournament early in the week to practice some on basics and give myself a must needed mental break from the move. It has been some time since I have played any serious poker and I know I need to get back tuned up. (Writers never forget how to write.) But poker at the level I play is a sport and it takes bringing back skill levels to sharpness when away for…

  • Challenge

    One More Day of Filler

    Should Have Expected a Tired Day… …after spending over ten hours yesterday hauling and moving truck-loads of stuff. But I thought I would be back to speed today. Nope. Almost, but nope. Still got a lot done, though. At one point today there were six WMG Employees in the new store putting things together. And we still had two of our stores open and someone still in the publishing office. Great fun. Josh got a great picture of me up on a ladder with Dan, the manager of the bookstore holding my belt to make sure I didn’t go over backwards since the ground was soft under the ladder. Below…

  • Challenge

    Filler Time…

    I Stopped Moving… Not done with the move (will finish the rest in late July), but I stopped moving after four twenty-foot-truck-loads today and another car full around 7 p.m. Started at 9 a.m. That is a stupid amount of physical work for a 67 year-old overweight guy. Thankfully I also had two great young guys I had hired, but still kept up with them as I have a want to do. And thanks Matt for bringing me a late lunch. Very much appreciated. Great to have good friends. After all that I spent the night watching television, something I almost never do. Then could barely climb out of the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    That Was Very Interesting…

    THANK YOU!… Everyone, for the feedback, both in the comments and in letters. Both Kris and I were surprised, to be honest. The desire for a depth-like workshop talking about information flow was across the board. And even the Magic Bakery had a lot of people wanting to take it. Plus we got a bunch of other ideas for workshops. Some were on our lists like a Romance online workshop (very different from the intense craft Romance workshop Kris will do in Vegas next year). But one idea hadn’t occurred to us and that was a workshop about how to use tags. Tags are one of the most powerful tools…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Two Possible New Workshops

    Scheduling and Trying to Decide… Working on the next four months of regular workshop schedules and I have sort of settled on two new workshops I would love to put together with Kris. So feedback is welcome. And yes, lifetime subscribers you will get any new workshop we do automatically. So first off, I like the idea of doing a Magic Bakery Workshop. Six weeks covering all kinds of details about how writers make a living and run a business with the focus on copyright and IP valuation. Now we did two advanced lectures on those two topics, but this would be so, so much more detailed and into the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Controlled By Fear

    Needing an Agent is an Irrational Fear… I said that in a webinar today and got a couple comments later from writers who had heard it. And it dawned on me that even though needing an agent is based completely in irrational fears, most writers don’t understand that. Even though it is obvious to me. So here I am again, trying to talk logic at a myth once again. Almost always a failure, but I keep trying. And Kris and I talking about agents sure stirs up the trolls out there. Wow, you would think it was us that just recently stole the 3.4 million from writers instead of agents.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Webinars Sunday for The Indie Game and Fear Workshops

    They Will Both Be Fun… The Insider’s Guide workshops The Indie Game and Fear in Writing will be great fun tomorrow (Sunday) for an hour-plus each in webinar format. Both of these could have some amazing discussions and questions as the weeks go by. Lifetime subscribers stop by even if you didn’t turn in an assignment. The link is at the bottom of the first week’s assignments in both workshops. The Game webinar will be at 11 a.m. West Coast Time US and the Fear webinar will be at 1 p.m. West Coast US. We did both workshops originally as the weekend workshops. We are not changing out the videos…

  • Challenge,  Writing in Public

    A Picture of Me Typing

    On My Little iPad… Since my office in the condo in Las Vegas is not set up yet, I was sitting at the table in our condo dining room working on something when Kris got this picture as I was paying no attention. Since today I spent all day shuttling cars around here on the Oregon Coast (returning rental car, having our Cadillac tuned up), and in meetings at WMG and stores and cleaning up stuff, I figured I would just do something easy here tonight. So here comes the picture. You can see the mountains to the west of Vegas through the shades. And I had a fun dinner…