• Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    News Flash!!! Editor Caught Kicking Writer off Titanic!!

    David H. Hendrickson Still Selling Stories to Pulphouse...   Dave and his wonderful wife, Brenda, are in town for a few days and the three of us caught the Titanic Exhibit at the Luxor again. Second time for them, third or fourth for me. Place is just stunning and worth your time, especially if you understand the massive ramifications in business and society of that ship going down. There is a full-sized replica of the grand staircase and also a full-scale replica of a section of the Promenade Deck that night, plus a third class cabin and a first class cabin. And a ton of stories and artifacts. Worth the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    5 Does and 5 Don’ts For Fiction Writers…

    Some Don’ts… 1… Writers, do not say you are going to go trademark your idea or your most recent book. It does not work that way. 2… Writers, do not say you are going to go copyright your most recent story or novel or idea. It does not work that way. 3… Writers, do not think everyone is going to steal your new idea. It does not work that way. (And chances are your wonderful new idea has been done a million times before anyway. However, it will be original if you write it in your voice and don’t rewrite it into pablum. (Definition of pablum is bland or insipid…

  • Challenge,  publishing

    What Is A Brand?

    I Get Asked That Question At Times… My answer is, “It depends on what you are asking.” If you are branding a series of books, then branding is making the covers and layout of the books similar enough that a reader, at a glance, will know it is first, your book, and second, part of the series. You do that with name and title placements, fonts, similar art, and actual titles. Plus other smaller things, but you get the idea. Then there is “author brand” which depends more on the types of books you are writing and what readers can depend on when they pick up one of your books.…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    WMG Holiday Spectacular 2022

    Kickstarter Campaign… Funded in less than an hour and hit the first stretch goal in less than 12 hours. Wow!! And this one we are doing 16 days instead of 9 days. So with luck, we’ll finally get the fun holiday calendar of stories to a place we have been hoping it would get to for the last three years. 39 stories this year, one delivered every day from Thanksgiving (November 24th through January 1st. Over thirty professional writers wrote for it. Hugo Award winning editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch did all the editing. Talk about fun. And two special workshops on the topics of two of the anthologies Kris will…

  • Uncategorized

    Holiday Spectacular 2022 Kickstarter Campaign Is Live!!!

    Launched!! This is the fourth year of this really fun, and really difficult project for us to do. We found wonderful new art at the Licensing Expo so we could rebrand everything. And start to take this brand and this wild idea to the next level. WMG Holiday Spectacular 2022 Kickstarter Campaign. Take a look. Tons of different holiday books for gifts, not counting that this year there are 39 different holiday stories in the calendar by over thirty professional writers. Delivered with an introduction to you every day to read on any device you want. All edited by Hugo Award winning editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch. And two fun special…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign

    GIFTS…. We Got Gifts…

    Holiday Spectacular 2022 Kickstarter… It will be starting in a few hours and I will come back here and post about it. But wow, I know it is early to be thinking about holiday shopping, but this campaign has a ton of great gifts for writers and readers and anyone who loves holiday stories. The plan is to launch it at noon on Tuesday, West Coast Time. Right now you can get on the Kickstarter notification page for it at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/403649867/wmg-holiday-spectacular-2022 The new art and branding this fourth year is really special. And wow do we have things everyone could give as gifts. Since I have been buried in it…

  • Challenge

    A Streak By Any Other Name…

    …Can Be a Real Pain in the Ass Headed for bed, going to get a good night’s sleep because I have a lot of extra finish work to do tomorrow on the new Holiday Spectacular 2022 Kickstarter campaign. And Kris, bless her, asked, “Did you blog?” Nope. Totally spaced it, and thus it came that close for tonight being the first miss in over 3,700 days of never missing a day writing something here. Wow, do streaks have power once they get going. Amazing.  I average well over 100,000 words a year in just doing this. Consumable words. So now, since I do have a ton of stuff to do…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  running

    A Bunch of Pictures

    From Today’s Two Charity Runs… Up stupidly early for a cancer charity run that Donny Osmond backs and was there.  Kris just kicked my ass, but I still finished four minutes faster than my time at the Vegas Strong run two weeks ago. It felt slower, but I was faster and got 4th in my age category. But Kris got 3rd in her age group. Not at all sure what got into her, but I stayed with her and ahead of her for the first two miles, then she just left me in the dust. Then a great breakfast at a favorite restaurant, The Squeeze Inn, and home for a…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    An Attempt At Working With Angel

    Not Easy… Angel is our Tonkinese cat who we rescued from a shelter about a year ago.  Kris talks about her and our other two boys all the time on Facebook. The three of them are “Promotion Central.” But tonight, as I tried to record Motivation Monday 3rd week of the 4th Quarter, Angel wanted attention between running around and yelling. Up until a month ago, she would never just jump up on my lap here at the computer, but now she just surprises me as she lands squarely on my lap between me and the keyboard. That caused a couple videos to be started over tonight. Below is a…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign

    Holiday Spectacular 2022 Coming!!

    Yup, That Time of the Year… On Tuesday at noon West Coast Time, the Holiday Spectacular 2022 Kickstarter will fire up. Lots of great rewards and other cool stuff, and every backer will get the Holiday Spectacular 2022. For those who didn’t get in on the last three years, the Holiday Spectacular is a brainchild of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s. For every day from American Thanksgiving (November 24th this year) through January 1st (39 days), those who get the Holiday Spectacular 2022 will get an original holiday story from over thirty top fiction writers delivered to them to read in any device the reader might want. That’s right, 39 original holiday…