When It Comes to Production… …there are two sides in this modern world. Yesterday I was talking about what might be possible with writing production. But I sure don’t plan on ramping up to a major writing production cycle to have the books and stories sitting in a drawer. Nope, they have to be in Smith’s Monthly and published stand-alone and both those and that magazine takes some real production time and energy at WMG Publishing Inc. (Remember, I am still working at hitting 67 major titles published this year before the  middle of November, and that does not count short stories stand alone.) So today I sat down with…

When It Comes to Production… I did a post on streaks, and have shown here that novels in all sorts of locations and challenges are possible. But in a conversation earlier today, I realized that all the challenges I have done with writing lately are time-limited. — Write 30 short stories in thirty days. Check, done twice. — Write a novel in five days while traveling. Check, wrote the book about doing it. — Write four novels in July. Check. All four novels now published. And here I am with over 1700 regular blog posts, a challenge, a streak that is not limited. I have studied a lot of the…

Spent the Day Up at WMG Offices Mostly I was doing some recording of coming workshops and such. And I got to play in collectables as well. Including looking for Chevy ads from 1961 newspapers. And going through a bunch of jewelry. And I bought a 1/4 scale Batman Dark Knight Mint in Package. So fun stuff. While I was doing all that on a rainy, cold day on the Oregon Coast, Kris was doing something far, far more important. She was marching in the March for our Lives in Vegas. Here is a picture of her getting ready to go out that she sent me.     ———— Femme…

Back in My Office At My Big Computer… But wow, was that one of those drives. Not a golf drive. I’ve been known over the years to hit a few of those fairly long, but this drive was by car. Actually van. Started off great with a wonderful breakfast and meeting with my closest friend who I have known and been best friends with since 1964. Then I drove through first sunshine, then rain, then snow over a nasty hill. Then more sunshine for an hour or so, then it started to rain and I drove for three hours in downpours until it turned to snow over the coast range,…

But There Are Details To Learn… Watching The Voice and in a couple places, the coaches told an artist to do some little trick or another. Watch having your head up too much, plant your feet to stay grounded, things like that to help in the technique of the song. It dawned on me that earlier in the evening I had been doing the same thing in some writer’s assignments. Things like watching information flow in descriptions, when to use character descriptions of clothes, when not to use dialog, and so on. All just techniques that are small and obvious once you understand them, yet as Kris said, each of…

Fell Asleep and Burned Dinner… Not kidding. I put on the potatoes and mushrooms and onions to boil. The idea was to have a simple dinner with pork loin, gravy and potatoes. Nope. It was not to be. Even simple seemed to be beyond me tonight. I set my alarm on my phone for ten minutes of a nap while the potatoes cooked and next thing I knew the poor helpless things were dry and burning. I hadn’t cooked dinner, I had tortured it. And the smell coming from the kitchen was not something to make anyone hungry. Kris sent me back to nap some more and fixed something from…

I Had a Great Time at Superstars… I had the pleasure to meet many talented writers as well as hang around with some old friends I have known for over three decades. Fun conversations and I learned all kinds of stuff. But the travel problems I could have done without, especially that first trip in. (grin) And I was expecting issues going back because in my experience when things go south, it goes all the way south. I was mostly right about that. I was up and eating breakfast at 6 a.m. Mountain Time, which is 5 a.m. my normal time. About when I wind down normally, so my sleep…