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Topic of the Night: My Seven Keys of a Challenge
Topic of the Night: My Seven Keys of A Challenge A number of people have written me and made comments on the blogs about how they like the crazy challenges I come up with. Let me give you, in seven points, my reasoning about any challenge. 1st… I have learned it has to be short term. My memory and attention span is so short that if I try for long-term challenge that can’t be broken down into much shorter challenges, I will stop cold or just forget, which is more likely to happen. 2nd… It has to be something I haven’t done before, or have an element that makes it new.…
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Fun Stuff Happening This Week
Fun Stuff Happening This Coming Week Kris finished reading Star Fall: A Seeders Universe Novel and she liked it. She didn’t have many corrections at all, so took me about an hour tonight to run through it and put in her corrections that I agreed with, then got it off to WMG. As I said earlier, the book will be in a bundle in the middle of September. And speaking of bundles, I have a book in a really nifty bundle right now. It’s called “Out of This World Bundle” and it has 16 sf and fantasy novels in it, including one by me and one by Kris and a fantastic…
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Day One: Novel Challenge
Day One: Novel Challenge Really a strange start to this new novel challenge. I ended up getting to the WMG offices around 2:30 p.m., then headed out for errands, first going to our south store, then to a bank, then back to WMG offices, then to a second bank and the post office before heading to walk with two other writers. Got done with the walk around 5 p.m., headed to the grocery store for some lunch and to pick up what I needed for dinner, then back to WMG Publishing to work on workshop stuff. Home by 7 p.m., so 3.5 hours of work, 1 hour of exercise. Cooked…
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Sales Writing Problem
Sales Writing Problem I want to talk for a moment about blurb writing. That is below in the topic of the night. Today I spent all afternoon (after walking) to work on workshops, then all evening, and also into the night. Just one of those days. No real writing today. But I am hoping to finish the novel tomorrow or Friday. And fire on the next novel. But I got over six miles in today on exercise. —————– Master Class Workshop. Since I worked on workshops all day, I figured I might as well give a plug to a coast workshop happening here from October 15th to late on the 22nd.…
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Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: You Must Be Talented to Be a Professional Writer
(This is a vastly updated chapter on this topic from six years ago if it sounds slightly familiar. But it needs to be a chapter in the new Sacred Cows book.) Chapter Four The word “talent” has been used for a very long time to destroy writers. I have always believed that the word is the worst myth of them all in publishing, so here goes a chapter that I’m sure will be annoying to some people. Especially to those of you who think you are talented. Okay, first to my trusty and well-worn Oxford American Dictionary for a standard definition. Talent: Special or very great ability, people who have…
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Approach With Attitude
Approach With Attitude I got a hunch this topic is big enough for a book all its own, or maybe a workshop, but I’m going to talk about it just a touch tonight in regards to the challenge I’m starting on Friday. See below.. ——- The Day Meeting at WMG Publishing offices at 2 p.m., then at 3:30 p.m. I started my standard running all over hell-and-gone doing business errands. Made it back to the office to work on workshop and covers by 5:30 and then off to the grocery store and home to take a nap. Kris did dinner and I did dishes and I got in here around…
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Goodbye Miss Thang
Miss Thang The very sick elderly cat we have been trying to get back to health for the last two months didn’t make it. More on all that below. ——- The Day Started the day off with a visit to the vet. Then back to WMG store for the writer’s meeting and lunch in the back area. It feels sort of strange, actually, to have a writer’s meeting in a store I own. In my first bookstore, both the science fiction club and the writer’s workshop met in my store every week. One on Tuesday, one on Thursday. That was in 1982-1984. Things go around and come around again in…
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Topic of the Night: Restarting Your Writing
Restarting Your Writing All of us, for one reason or another, stop writing for a time. Sometimes it is health reasons, sometimes it is family reasons, or sometimes it is because we just forget, which happens right about now for a vast number of writers. For me, I stopped about thirty days ago to focus on opening a new collectables store, comic book store, and book store combined. Great fun. And even though I thought about writing along the way since I was teaching and still around numbers of writers who were writing, I really flat didn’t want to write. And I didn’t force myself. And I had no illusion that…
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Topic of the Night: Can’t vs Don’t
Can’t vs Don’t Over the last month or so I’ve been seeing tons of writers talk about how they can’t do this or that aspect of publishing. All I have been doing is shaking my head and mostly turning away. I kind of equate this to saying I wanted to be a professional fiction writer when I started in 1974, but I couldn’t mail a manuscript to an editor. Pretty much a terminal problem for a career when I started off. So let me start off with giving you one thing you absolutely can’t do (in my opinion.) You can’t do your own copyediting. We writers just can’t see our own mistakes.…
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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter One
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter One This is going to be fun. I want to repeat that often. The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Why Does This Structure Work? Going to see if it will work, but pretty confident it will if life events leave me alone. And if you are reading this in a paper or electronic book instead of on my blog, you will know it did work.…