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Always a Battle On Monday…
Lot of Email and Workshop Stuff On Mondays… So getting a daily story done is a battle, carving out the time. Every Monday is a victory when a story gets done and tonight it was a Marble Grant story called “A Window for No Time.” Love that title. Got kind of snarky with the story, which was also fun. I am so looking forward to starting the next stage of this, which is ramping up the publishing part. I will feel a lot better if Kris has read a month’s worth of stories before I fire into that. So not far off. Shortest story so far is 1,600 words and…
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Still Going Strong On Challenge…
A Short Post Here Tonight… Finished a weird Bryant Street story (they are all weird), then Kris and I watched a bunch of television. Then I read a wonderful new novella from Kris and along with two naps, a writer lunch, some walking, and a webinar, that ate up the day. Fun day. CRAFT IN THE 21ST CENTURY… This class on WMG Teachable is something Kris really wanted to do. She will be recording videos every week and they will come out on Monday some time. No assignments, just learning about how some craft things have changed in the 21st century. She has already recorded the first videos for Monday.…
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Story A Day Challenge Going Great!
And I Am Still Having Fun! Tonight I got a few more stories spellchecked and ready for Kris to read, and then worked on a Bryant Street story. The stories I got ready for Kris were a Poker Boy story and a Seeders Universe story. So I am all over the map. With luck, my new Shopify Store will be ready and I will have together and in the publishing process the first two or three ten-story collections. So going along with the writing just fine, slowly building up the publishing side. Got to have that publishing side or like the last time I tried this challenge, I will bog…
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Clocks Ticking…
40 HOURS LEFT ON MARBLE GRANT KICKSTARTER We hit the special stretch goal and are close to another that also includes a free workshop. But just less than two days to go. Ends at 7pm Thursday night. Here is the link to it. Marble Grant Kickstarter Also the two workshops in this one might be the most fun workshops we have done. I know I am going to have a blast with them, since Marble Grant and Sims are both ghosts in Las Vegas who love to party, love each other, and love to help people. Here is the information from the campaign about the two special workshops… These will…
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Back to the Future…
The Next Kris and Dean Show… That’s right, Kris and I are going to take apart on video the 40-year-old-movie BACK TO THE FUTURE. We watched half of it tonight and will watch the other half tomorrow and then record the three hours of videos on Monday and Tuesday and it will come out the next day. Wow does this movie still stand up perfectly. We are going to be talking about plotting, information flow (a lot), pacing, characters, and so much more. And I hope in an entertaining way. The Kris and Dean Show Does Die Hard is also still up. So until this launches on Wednesday, you can…
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Story Challenge and Storage Unit
A Disruptive Day… Started off with Kris waking me up suddenly because the fire alarm people doing their regular checks of sprinklers and fire alarms were here. I am glad they do it, just wish early mornings would not be the case. Got a couple more hours of sleep before having to get up early for the cleaners to show up. So while the cleaners were here, I headed out to storage to look for author copies to bring to the office. Found a dozen boxes while only moving one massive stack. Also got a bunch of half titles from some old Venture magazines and also some 1960s Hitchcock Magazines.…
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Stories #4 and #5 for February…
Somehow Managed to Do Them… So the challenge is still going. I have totally failed at trying to write during the day, but will get that changed as well shortly. Tomorrow, since we have cleaners swarming all over our place in the afternoon, I will be heading out to our storage unit for two reasons. I will be looking for more of our author’s copies (missing dozens and dozens of boxes of them… yes, the storage unit is that big…) and at some point I will dig into a bunch of boxes of digests and do more sheets of half titles. I have a good thousand or so half titles…
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Story #2 February…
Yes, Restarting Numbering Each Month… I know I got 31 stories done in January. Restarting keeps the number lower so I don’t think of eating the elephant too much. And gives me a monthly target for stories completed. Tonight’s story was a late starting story because I had a ton of other stuff to do, so I went for a character with a lot of voice that I am having fun with and that is my new character, Private Detective “No-Neck” Crunch. All the story titles start “A Woman Who…” And the last part of the title is a hint to where he will find the body of the woman…
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Ate the Elephant For a Time…
Had To Sit Down and Take Deep Breaths… You see, I have four big whiteboards on one wall of my office. They have the titles of the short stories that are in the first 50 issues of Smith’s Monthly. I stopped at Issue 50 because I ran out of room on the boards. There are 220 titles of stories written up there. 220 stories, covers an entire wall. I hope to do 365 stories this year. I happened to glance up at the wall of story titles and my mind went, “That is just 2/3rds of the number of stories you hope to write this year.” Wham!!! I went from…
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Golf, Kickstarter, and Story #30
Fun Day! It was a stunningly beautiful day and professional fiction writer Ron Collins and I walked down to the Strat to hit golf balls. Ron is a good player and I used to be. But now I am 20 pounds overweight and have a new Titanium shoulder, getting any kind of control of the ball is a challenge. And a lot of fun. A lot of laughs, actually. But toward the end of the hour I had worked out a few things and was managing to hit shots against the back fence. Without hitting either side fence. Then this afternoon I started writing before taking a nap and cooking…