Dean Wesley Smith

Had a Blast… Spent from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. at the store, mostly talking with people and buying comics from people bringing them through the door. Great fun. Then off to dinner for a birthday of a friend, then back to the office to work on workshops. Then home to keep working on stuff here, including putting the final table of contents together for Issue #1 of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. Paper copies of Issue #0 should be shipping as soon as they get here. I am very proud of how the magazine is shaping up. Great fun for me, and I hope the reading is fun as well. ————–…

Tough Getting Up at Noon When I Saw Seven A.M…. And the store was deadly slow. So got lots of talking in with the owner of the small mall and with Dan who runs our bookstore which is across the parking lot from the store I was watching. It feels good to actually be out there seeing how things are running instead of just checking in a few times a week. I don’t need to do this, but I thought it would be fun, except for the lack-of-sleep part. Then I headed back to my office at the WMG offices and except going home to cook dinner, was in the…

Not a Great Day for Picking, but Not Bad Either… I actually spent half the time in the place today in Salem on my phone on eBay looking up German and French and British vintage china to see what prices I could get for it on eBay. (For some reason there was a lot of it.) Found some really nice stuff, not sets, just parts, but the entire cost of the dishes I did find was $2.42 cents (not a typo) and I bet we will list and sell most of that china for well over two hundred bucks. Now that’s a mark-up. (grin) So a fun afternoon to break…

Strengths Workshops Closing Again Tomorrow… If you are signed up or have credits through the Kickstarter offer, you can still get in and take them. But for new sign-ups, the window is closing. Just too much work for me and Kris to keep them open. The Strength Workshops are six workshops. You can one, two, or all six. Check the link on the right side for deals. You want to see how you are doing in different areas, there are two craft, two business, two  sales. All about the same size as a normal six-week regular workshop, only these Strength workshops you do on your own pace. You might be…

Thought I Might Get Started On a Novel Tonight… But nope. Spent the late afternoon out at the two south stores and then the auction until after 8 p.m. Then I headed up to the office and ate dinner while I worked on workshop stuff, not getting home until after midnight. This switching workshops to teachable takes some time. Then I watched some television and got a bunch of stuff caught up and did some reading on the challenges from October. Remember, new challenge if you are interested in jumping in starting on the 1st of January. I am only taking five for the novel challenge and five for the…

I Am That Crazy… I am going to do it again. I am offering to be a first reader for some of you. I am still just finishing up the reading for the short story challenge that ended yesterday and the writers are still working on novels until January 15th, but that means I will have time to read again starting January 1st. What a great way to be motivated starting the new year. The first two times I did this, the challenges turned out to be fun for me. And the writers who participated said it challenged them to get writing done they might not have gotten done without…

Also Had a WMG Meeting… That was how the day started, with a WMG Meeting, then Kris and I managed to head into the valley and I dropped her off to watch a movie at a theater there and went picking. I spent exactly $73.10 for an entire trunk of stuff. My gut sense is we’ll sell or try to sell all of the stuff I found for just under a thousand. It might be more, depending on the brand names of some of the silk ties I got. You can get a lot of silk men’s ties for $1.19 a pound. And a ton of silk scarves. Plus a…