• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Writing Can Be Stupid

    Story Nine Done, But What A Pain… Today, without a doubt, might have been the busiest day I have had in a long, long time. And I expected it to be honest. After tomorrow, things calm down amazingly for me and I can actually get to more packing. But today was nonstop from the time I got up until the time I sat down to write. About 13 straight hours. So what do I do? Do I write a simple 2,000 word story and go to bed? Nope, 4,400 words later I have a Thunder Mountain story and it is way late for my new schedule. Now that’s just silly……

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Eight In Eight Days

    Still Going Along Strong… The next few days with all the workshop stuff will be an interesting challenge, then after that things smooth out and I will have time to get to not only more writing, but packing. Not much of that the last few days, other than I have managed to get stuff out of this house every day. That’s something. Onward. The Day Got up around 10:30 a.m. mostly not able to sleep any longer after only five hours. Couldn’t shut off the brain. Then I headed to WMG offices to work on Pulphouse. I did that until the writer’s lunch, which was great fun today. A bunch…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Story Seven and Moving

    One Week, Seven Stories… Pretty happy to have gotten through the first hard area of this challenge. Between story #4 and #7 it feels like I had reached the first third of a novel. You know, everything is shit, what’s the point in going forward place we all hit. Difference in a professional writer and an early writer is professionals power through, early writers give up on the book. Well, I am a professional writer and I got through that part. So now the next few days will be a challenge with just a ton of stuff to do outside of writing. After that, I see smoother sailing I hope.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Something New Tonight

    Surprised Me… I got a decent night’s sleep, did a ton of work until almost 10:30 p.m. at WMG, came home, did some email, took a nap, felt great, ready to write, started the story at midnight and was done by 1 a.m. Go figure. The Day Got up around 11 a.m.. Then did a little email, packed some boxes, fed the feral cat outside who wanted to be toweled down (because it was raining) like Kris used to do to him.  Yes, he is feral, but Kris talked him into letting her do that much if food was there. He usually runs from me, but he has figured out…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Day Four. Exhausted

    Lack of Sleep… I was tired yesterday, but ended up only getting about five-and-a-half hours sleep because I needed to be out at the south stores very early to meet a collector who was selling us a large collection. So today I was really exhausted. But still got a story done anyway. The Day Got up around 8:30 a.m.. Then to the south Pop Culture Store and the North by Northwest Bookstore. When I pulled up the collector had unloaded a dozen large tubs of stuff and was waiting for me to tell him which store to take it to. I finally left there after sorting a bunch of it…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Day Three, Story Three

    Pretty Tired, But Still Got To The Story… I tend to get tired on the third day of these challenges, not from the writing, but from the changing of the schedules around to still get everything done. And I got a car-load of stuff out of the house today as well. Not as much on the move as I wanted, but some. One bite at a time will eat this moving elephant, I hope. The Day Got going by around 11 a.m. once again. Then into the office for some stuff there, then off to do errands like mail and banking and such. Then I spent the afternoon and early…

  • On Writing,  publishing

    Getting Ready To Start The Challenge

    Doing All Sorts of Odds and Ends… Mostly I worked to clean up things I was behind on, such as email. And I did some resting as well. So the day was about the focus to get started writing short stories tomorrow. How do I get ready when I have no idea at all what story or stories I will be writing? I won’t even give any idea a thought until I sit down at my writing computer tomorrow. (Even if I did, my memory is so bad I would forget it by then anyway.) Well, I cleaned up my writing desk. That is sort of a signal to me…

  • Challenge,  Misc

    Rolled In After Midnight

    So I Am Back On the Coast Until the End of April… Doing workshops, Pulphouse Magazine layout, writing short stories, and packing. A ton of packing. Tomorrow night I’ll talk about my preparation for the short story challenge. Mostly mind-set preparations, since I never plan what I am writing out ahead. So that ends tonight the great cat trip. 26 hour drive, two days of rest and helping them get settled, then a flight back tonight and a drive back to the coast. The cats are safely in the condo in Vegas with Kris and doing as well as could be expected. Now back to writing tomorrow after I get…

  • Challenge,  Misc

    Headed Back To The Coast

    Flying This Time… Leaving Kris the van and two cats. Both cats seem to be getting used to the place. I’m going to be getting ready to fire up on the short-story-a-day challenge starting on Sunday. That’s just part one of this coming challenge. Plus I have an entire house to pack and get cleared. So starting Sunday these blogs will get longer as I talk about how to focus on a challenge and writing and production in the middle of a pretty intense life roll. Moving, they say, is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life. So figure this short story per day for April will…

  • Challenge,  Misc

    Me and The Cats Made It

    26 Hours… I stopped and rested for a few hours in a hotel room around 5 in the morning, took a shower, then stopped every 45 minutes after that for the next six hours to rest and drink water and some caffeine. Left at 12:30 p.m. from Lincoln City and got in here to our condo in Las Vegas at 2:30. Had dinner in Boise with a friend along the way as well. Cats never said a word. I had them in a massive dog carrier that took help from Josh at WMG to get into the van. They had pillows and a blanket and they didn’t make a sound…