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Writers at the Ball Park
Great Fun on a Great Afternoon.. Kris and I and Lisa Collins headed for the Royals/Rockies pre-season game here in Vegas. The park is fantastic, we had good seats, and my eyes are better enough that I could actually track balls after they were hit, which was a worry of mine going. Made the afternoon a lot more fun, let me tell you. Kris did a great post about the afternoon on Facebook. I just wanted to put the picture here of what it looks like when two New York Times bestselling writers go to a baseball game. It looks exactly like any two people. (grin)
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Learning In Writing
Not Like Other Skills… This came from a fun conversation with other writers today at lunch. When you learn something in fiction writing, you can’t just take that learning and apply it like learning how to fix a pipe or do something in Photoshop. I wish sometimes it worked that way, but alas it does not. So when you learn something from a writing book, or another writer’s work, or a workshop like we teach, you must do your best to understand it while learning it, then go back to writing and forget what you learned. That’s right, forget it. When you learn something about a craft area of writing,…
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Update to Award On the Full Challenge
Got Some Questions About the Awards… On the full challenge, if you get past whatever I write or anywhere near a million words in the nine months (no matter how much I write if I write more than a million), then you get your choice of a Lifetime Subscription. But if the Lifetime Subscription doesn’t interest you, or you already have it, you could get something like a full year of the Advanced Craft Classes (going to be doing six more in 2024.) Or one of the year-long subscriptions that has a price about the same as a lifetime subscription. (We will do another of those in 2024 as well…
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Dean Challenges… Two of them…
Both a Full and a Half Challenge… Last night I mentioned I was thinking about doing a challenge for anyone who wanted to try to match or beat the number of consumable words I wrote from April 1st 2023 until December 31st, 2023. Nine months. I said what I hoped to hit, but of course that is just the plan and we all know how plans go. (grin) But I also suggested that I would set up a challenge for anyone who wanted to try to match me. A challenge similar to the other challenges already there. And a couple people thought they could keep up or beat me, which…
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A Fun Challenge…
This Is Only An Idea… Many of you know I got basically an eye infection in my only good eye back in late October that pretty much made me blind for a time and vision challenged for months now. Docs said it would take six months to get better and it has been getting better. Still not back yet, but I am getting back reading. I will be catching up on workshop stories I have let go (thanks for understanding) and even more fun I will be reading Kris’s new Diving novel that has been sitting on my table for three weeks. Damn that is exciting. But even more exciting…
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Not Enough Hours
We All Have Those Kinds of Days… No matter how we try, there is just not enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. In the old days, I would just short myself on sleep, but not these days. I think I burnt out that ability somewhere in my early sixties. So Advanced Character Development is a Tuesday Class, and responses and the new week will be posted on Tuesday. Late Tuesday, so many of you will already be in bed when that happens. Don’t write me. Just shows me you don’t read this. (grin) Today (which is now Tuesday), Kris and I run screaming…
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Wow… SF Wins Oscars
What a Stunner… As a sf writer, I have been watching for years and years and decades for a science fiction movie to get some attention at the Oscars. Nope, never happened. Kris loves to watch the Oscars, so I went downstairs on a break to watch the end and a sf movie had already won best supporting actress with Jamie Lee Curtis, and best supporting actor. And then while I was watching, the sf movie won best script, best director, best actress, and then best picture. And Brandon Fraser won best actor. We really are in an alternate reality. Or a multiverse. I write an entire series of time…
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Saturday Night Filler
Giving Myself a Rest… Yeah, I know. Shocking for a person who basically works from morning to late at night seven days a week all year. But just completed a ton of projects, starting a few others, so figured I would just give myself a day. I sort of got the hint when I took a second nap that I might need some down time. You think? (grin) So last day of the special blog workshop sale. All March workshops have started On Tuesday the two special workshops will start. I should have email to everyone on Monday on those. Still haven’t gotten all the information from Kickstarter on that,…
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Quick Update
Code Extended… Seems until I reminded people on my blog last night, they did not know about the blog workshop 50% sale. So I have extended to code to be good through late Sunday night instead of tonight. Popular request. Monday or Tuesday’s blog at the bottom gives you the information and the code. For all things on Teachable, not just the fantastic March workshops starting up.
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Copyright Valuation… A Sort of Rant…
Or Maybe Just Puzzlement… Before I start on the rant, a reminder that the workshop discount I offered in the Monday blog will expire late on Friday night. Don’t miss it. —– This story starts at Superstars. Kevin J. Anderson and his wonderful crew had set up some panels on estate planning for writers and I was sitting in all of them. So was Kevin. Kevin and I and Kris are all working hard on dealing with our estates after two of our friends died without even a will. We all have wills and such, but we want to take everything to the next step. We all want our estates…