Some Updates and Other Fun Stuff
First Practice Run…
Actually, no real running, only 2.5 miles of walking because no one cared that the course was short. For me, the practice came at getting up so early to go running. It was fun.
First real run is Sunday, with an actual 5k course and timing bibs.
I figure this coming Sunday will set the mark for the slowest of the year as I do more and more running and the weight drops over the fall. That is the plan, anyway. (grin)
Publishing Fun…
I spent most of today laying out the next issue of Smith’s Monthly. I do all the covers, all the layout, and, of course, all the writing. 65 issues now of about 70,000 words per issue. Yup, not something you want to try at home. First issue was October 2013, a little time off for the pandemic, then right back on it.
So a fun day today after the pain of watching the Raider’s football game was over. Ughh…
Writing and Projects…
Got friends in town, so not sure if the Buffet challenge will fire up or not this week. We shall see. But really looking forward to seeing them.
I am going to do a very hard restart on my writing and publishing challenges on Saturday, October 1st. Stay tuned, I’ll let you know what it is. And yes, it will be silly, as normal. But fun.
Now since my eyes are tried from all the layout work, I’m going to bail on this computer and go watch mindless television before falling asleep.
8 Comments
Mike Southern
Dean, do you have an update on the Pop-ups for the Pulphouse Kickstarter yet? I’ve been through all the folders in my email account and haven’t found anything. Thanks!
dwsmith
Not out, will be another week or so. I will send out an update on them when they are sent and also put it here on my blog.
Mike Southern
Thanks, Dean. I knew you mentioned them a couple of weeks or so back and wondered if I had just missed them.
Jason M
Dean, have you or Kris ever thought about writing a “My Life In the Publishing Trade” kind of book? Full of anecdotes, opinions, travesties, gossip, observations, etc?
dwsmith
Oh, heavens, no… Besides, too many writers these days think publishing is stuck the way it was in 1990. Tiny parts of it still are that think they are all of publishing, while the real publishing is blooming and growing. So no point in putting attention on that old world. I’d rather live here and work here in this new world.
Jason M
It could be a professional memoir of sorts. You wouldn’t have to bring any personal stuff into it.
Yes, I’ve run into some people on Twitter who are busy querying like it’s 1991. It boggles the mind. I’ve tried to speak to some of them about copyright, heirs, the creator economy, etc, but I generally get called names and told “every choice is valid, now leave me alone”. Hopefully the people reading the threads will allow themselves to be dragged gently into the 21st century.
dwsmith
Jason, won’t happen with 99.9% of them, sadly. The myth is so, so strong. And traditional publishing is still acting and believing as if they are the only way.
Nathan Haines
Sometimes I think the myths of traditional publishing are lies that aspiring writers want to be true so badly that they get swept away in the ghosts of publishing past. Or the stories told about it anyway.
A couple weeks ago in an oral storytelling group I participate in, I read the Nine-Thousand-Year Prologue from Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. It tells how long-foundered ships still sail the world on underwater rivers, where the ocean gets so dense that it’s like a second surface and sail along the hidden tides until they crumble away.
This is a pretty old idea, although not that common, I think. And after I had finished the reading, I got compliments, at how beautiful it was, and one person said he could picture the ships floating silently between hidden canyons.
I demurred, saying that the story selection did the heavy lifting, but said that I’d chosen the excerpt to share because it was romatic, evocative, and absolutely, completely untrue. As in physically impossible. But it still works as a story anyway, because although underwater ships sailing around the world is a lie, it’s a lie you want to be true. That’s the most effective kind, after all.
(The prologue is 248 words, btw, and should be in the Amazon “look inside” sample, if anyone’s intrigued. It’s a great standalone book in a series. Everyone knows prologues never work in books, so Pratchett put two of them in this one, each more captivating than the next, and then when the story catches up it’s breath-taking.)