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Starting a Thunder Mountain Novel Tomorrow
SO HERE IS A LOOK AT THE PREVIOUS TEN THUNDER MOUNTAIN NOVELS… I thought a look at the entire ten existing books plus a starter bundle of the Thunder Mountain series would be fun here tonight as tomorrow I start the 11th book in this series. All these books can be read as a stand-alone. But lots of character and detail stuff build if you read them in order. Since I was born and raised in Idaho and have been to these locations, Including Roosevelt, the town under water, I also thought this appropriate to show how a series could develop out of my love of science fiction, my love…
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Just Getting Ready For July
Clearing Decks and Ramping Up… Getting ready to write four novels in one month takes some thought. Not on the books. Haven’t thought about those at all. But on time and life. First off, I got 11,000 steps today, about 5.5 miles for me. Ramping up. My plan (if it works, a huge if) is doing 11,000 steps a day while writing book #1. Then do 12,000 steps a day while writing book #2. Then 13,000 steps a day while writing book #3, and 14,000 steps a day while writing book #4. So mostly I have been working on how the time is going to work out. Actually I have…
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Meetings and a Day Off
Did Both Meetings for WMG and a Day Off… Tough to have a day working and yet off, but Kris and I managed today. We headed into the valley after the WMG meeting and Kris spent time just sitting in a coffee shop reading while I went picking. Ended up getting 30 or so children’s books for a quarter each for the store, twenty hardbacks for the store at $2 each, some fun toys and things for the store at 99 cents a pound, and maybe one real collectable. A 1940s or early 1950s swing style woman’s wool coat, only tag said Union Made. I was looking through some bins…
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Some Movie Stuff
Lecture on Movie and Television Negotiating… Kris and I have spent so much time with Hollywood projects, and always have Hollywood projects in one stage or another for our work, we can’t even keep track at times. Not kidding. We have made so much money from Hollywood over the decades in one way or another, I would be stunned if I even tried to add it up. If we are ever face-to-face over dinner or a drink, I’ll be glad to tell you some horror stories. Some of them are pretty funny. One thing we hear regularly is the stupidity of writers saying they need an agent to negotiate Hollywood…
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A Busy Monday
Turned in Smith’s Monthly #40… That just messes with my mind when I realize, actually understand, that I have done 40 issues now of my own magazine. 60,000 to 70,000 words per month. One of the reason for the new challenge, to get four more issues out, since I have the short stories for them already. Today was busy. I ended up talking with our accountant about some needed changes going forward with corporations and structures. Then I met a guy to get an estimate on repaving our driveway. Then did some challenge reading and online assignments. Then spent the rest of the evening putting together Smith’s Monthly #40. My…
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Finished a Novel and Did Some Picking
A Novel Done… Spent the entire day out picking for collectables. Had a blast. Found some fun stuff and about 40 hardbacks for the store. Then home around 8:30 to cook dinner and then did some reading for the challenges, then went to my writing computer and got the novel finished. It clocked in at 44,000 words. So tomorrow night, with luck, I will turn in another volume of Smith’s Monthly. Patreon supporters and Smith’s Monthly subscribers, a bunch of stuff will be headed your way starting in a week or so. ——————— JULY ONLINE WORKSHOPS All have openings at the moment. Information at www.wmgpublishingworkshops.com Any questions at all, feel…
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Challenge Thinking
Some Thoughts on Challenges… I’m reading stories for the short story challenge and also starting to get the first novels in for the June part of the novel challenge. Everyone seems to be doing fine. In fact, so far, I am impressed. And the challenge is doing what it was intended to do, which was get writers to the keyboard in a rough time of year. And I’m having fun reading. For me, I seem to be working toward the July challenge in bits and pieces. I should finish this one novel by Sunday or Monday nights, and get other things worked out, including another issue of Smith’s Monthly turned…
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Just a Friday Post
Mostly to Keep the Streak of Posting Alive… Spent the day working on collectables, also finishing up a lecture, cooked dinner (a production that was fun and turned out well), did some writing on finishing up the novel, and then read stories for the challenge. So a pretty standard day for my activities around here and tomorrow I hope will be another. Every day I feel damn lucky to just have another standard day, to be honest. Lost a distant friend today due to illness. So standard, regular old days are pretty damn good in my opinion. I’m also a little closer to deciding to go for the crazy challenge.…
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Another Crazy Challenge For Myself
I Love Challenges… I tend to push myself with my writing at times. Anyone following this blog knows that, from writing 30 short stories in thirty days to writing a novel in five days while traveling. And that’s just in the last six months. I have a lot of things I like to do in this crazy life I lead, so challenges get me focused for short bursts of time on writing. So I’m thinking of a new challenge for July, one I’ve been thinking about for some time. And as many of my challenges do, it harks back to the old pulp writer days. And it sounds difficult if…
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I Get Startled At Times
Basic Publishing And Marketing… In Digital Book World today was an article by a writer by the name of Laurie Starkey. Now I do not know this Laurie Starkey that I remember, which means nothing considering my old brain. And Ms. Starkey was simply (very simply) pointing out to clearly flat beginning writers (her article was that basic) that a good way to get started was join together to do anthologies of novels. Yup, fine with that. I do that all the time. I started that way by selling to magazines. And she said that the main reason to do it is to get the power of authors together to…