Sixth Pop-Up Launching

Writing Mysteries into the Dark…

This is the sixth and last one for this year, of course. I will be announcing two or three more in a week or so. We will do at least two or more per month, and they are only up for two weeks at a time. Details of all of them are below.

However, you can still get the earlier ones in the bundles. We have three bundles available. The first five, the second five, and the first ten. As of today there are six Pop-Ups available in the bundles. Information about them is below. But again, the first three are only available in the bundles.

Everything is on Teachable.

Here is What They Are All About…

The Pop-Up.

Over the last number of years, topics and fun things had come up that Kris and I wanted to talk about, but we had had no structure to do so. But now we do with these Pop-Ups.

These Pop-Up topics will just appear when something strikes us. No regular order or timing. Each Pop-Up will consist of from 10 to 15 or more videos on the topic. Maybe some extra stuff if the topic needs extra. And then one short story assignment.

The Short Story Prompts

Each Pop-Up will also have a short story prompt to a specific topic associated with the Pop-Up. If you decide to write the short story, you have until the date the Pop-Up vanishes to send Dean the story at dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com (About two weeks, on average.)

Instructions and deadline for each will be in the assignment video. Or you can take your time, write the story, and just get it out to readers or markets on your own. Your choice.

Dean or Kris will read your story and give you feedback within a week or two of the deadline. (If you take the Pop-Up through a bundle after the deadline, just do the story for yourself. It will still be fun.)

We will suggest markets if we know of any. Also, if the story fits something either of us are editing at that moment and we like it, we might ask for you to send it back for that project. To send it back or not will be your choice. You are not submitting a story to anything by sending the story to us for feedback. You are just getting us to read it like a first reader. Only we are experienced editors.

Why would we do this? Because, honestly, we love reading short fiction and we would love to see what writers could do with some of these topics at hand.

Time Limited

Each Pop-Up workshop will only be available for sale for two weeks, then it will be gone. Only those who have bought the Pop-Up or who have one of the bundle options for the Pop-Ups with that Pop-Up in it will be able to keep the Pop-Up on your dashboard.

And as I said above about the short stories, to get our feedback on your writing, you must hit the deadline specified. Otherwise just write it for yourself which will be fun as well.

Everything is on Teachable.

Pop-Up #1… Great Comic Book Writers/Editors

With the death of Stan Lee last week, it dawned on Kris and I that we had known some of the best comic book writers and editors on the planet. Many great ones are still with us, thankfully, but over the last few years we have lost Julius Schwartz, Len Wein, and now Stan Lee. And because of our long careers, Kris and I have some wonderful stories about all three.

In essence, this Pop-Up will not only honor their work (some, but that has been done everywhere), but mostly honor the real people behind the legends.

So we hope you join us in a look at three of the great ones. It will be entertaining and informative, we promise. And the short story prompt at the end is great fun.

Pop-Up #2… Your Own Bookstore

At different conferences of indie writers around the country this last year, it has become clear that one of the main topics is writers selling books from their own bookstore directly to readers. Cutting out all the middle-distributors like Kobo, Amazon, and so on.

And now with Bookfunnel and numbers of pay services, the ease of setting up such a store makes it possible for just about any indie author.

But should authors do that? Here at the end of 2018 there is lots of discussion on both sides, with some writers making fantastic money from their own stores and others not finding it as easy as it seems to start.

This Pop-Up is a discussion of all the possibilities now. And a discussion if this is the future or not of indie publishing. Even if you have no desire to set up your own store at the moment, this Pop-Up could be invaluable in helping you make decisions for the future.

And yes, there will be a short story prompt with this topic. A fun one.

Pop-Up #3… The History and the Reason to Write Short Romance Fiction

For almost 100 years, the short romance form dominated. From the early pulp romance magazines through the days of paperbacks and into the category romances, the novel length varied from 25,000 to 50,000 words at the high end. Short novels. And short stories on the romance side are also making a comeback after being mostly missing from major publishing for almost thirty years.

This Pop-Up helps with the history of the romance novel before they became large-sized. And the history of the romance short story. And then goes into a discussion on why to write short romance and how many indie authors are using the shorter form to great success and keeping readers happy.

This Pop-Up also goes into a little of the form of romance fiction to set up a coming full romance regular workshop coming in 2019. And yes, there will be a really fun short story prompt with this one.

Pop-Up #4… Clean First Draft Writing

There is an art to writing clean first drafts. But it takes some learning, developing new habits, and climbing past a lot of fear and myths to get to the skill.

But it can be done and this Pop-Up will help you on the road to learning how to do it which will make your stories a ton better and save you more time than you can ever imagine.

And yes, there is a fun story prompt with this one as well.

Pop-Up #5… Remaining Focused for the Entire Year

How to set goals and challenges and streaks and habits and so much more for the new year is in the 5th Pop-Up now available on Teachable. It is called “Remaining Focused” and has all sorts of things that can help you hit your writing goals in 2019.

Plus it will be there for you for the entire year on your dashboard to review if you remember to back and look at it for help.

And yes, there will be a really fun short story prompt with this one.

Pop-Up #6… How to Write Mysteries into the Dark

This is pretty much what the title says it is. How to even see the fear, why not to write with an outline, why not to rewrite, and how to think about writing into the dark with a mystery story or novel.

If you want to write fun mystery novels that no reader will ever figure out ahead of time, this is the Pop-Up for you.