• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Day Two of the April Challenge

    Amazingly Busy Day… As expected, today, a Monday, got crazy busy in more ways than I had expected. And I had expected a lot, including getting started late with the writing. That happened. The Day Got going by around 11 a.m. and did a bunch of email, then chores around the house here, including taking massive loads of garbage out as I slowly start to work on moving things and tossing other things. I managed to get out of her and to WMG offices around 12:30 and then Allyson followed me 35 miles south to Newport so I could return a rental car I had rented at the Portland airport…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    BOOK #6 OF 67

    Up to Sharing Book Six… For each book of the 67 books with my name on them that I hope to publish in my 67th year of life, I will do a video. These videos will lag behind the actual publication because I want to wait for the paper copy to arrive. This video is about Burn Card: A Cold Poker Gang Novel. ————– Weekender Pop-Up Online Workshops Are Now Up on Teachable. A couple of these are about half full. https://wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures.teachable.com February 15-18, 2018 — Controlling Fear of Failure — How to Study and Practice in Fiction (A Study Plan) March 15-18th — Adding Tension to Your Writing —…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Well That Was Fun… Not!

    Tsunami Watch… Off the shore of Alaska tonight there was a big quake and one buoy showed a thirty-foot rise, so alerts and watches went out all over, from Alaska down to California and Mexico. Now here on the Oregon Coast, we have two of our three retail stores, including our bookstore, about eight feet above sea level. Even a ten foot surge which would have hit at about a plus-four foot high tide. That would have done real damage to our stores. So Kris and I were monitoring everything we could for the last two hours. Billy, our store manager was doing the same. And so was Allyson, the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Fun Idea From Vegas

    Sitting In Las Vegas… In the Golden Nugget Buffet, of course, talking with Lenny, a friend of mine who happens to be the son of my best friend. Lenny is now well into his thirties and is successful in the music industry. He and I were talking about Teachable. (His dad, my best friend, was off running an errand, so we weren’t boring him.) Lenny said he was thinking about setting up a tip of the week on Teachable and that I should think about doing that for writers. I liked the idea, since Teachable allows subscriptions and other things I was planning. So I came home on Monday and…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    BOOK FIVE OUT OF 67

    Still Having An Adventure And Far Too Many Meetings… So I figured tonight since I walked over 16,000 steps today, I would just share the video I did about the fifth book in The 67 Challenge, a Thunder Mountain novel. Some of you might remember I wrote this one in July in that challenge just as I wrote the last book in this challenge. July was a good month of writing. The book was published the second week of December. ————– Weekender Pop-Up Online Workshops Are Now Up on Teachable. A couple of these are about half full. February 15-18, 2018 — Controlling Fear of Failure — How to Study…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    The 67 Challenge: Book One

    Going Fine So Far… Some of you might remember that back toward the end of October I set up a challenge for myself for my 67th year. I am 67 years old and decided I wanted to try to publish my age. Golfers try to shoot their age, so I figured why not? The rules I put on myself were basically counting books the same way as Asimov counted his books. If my name was on the cover and I did a bunch of work for that, it counted. I excluded short stories because I could publish well over 6o of those per year without pushing. So these books had…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Want to Be Challenged Into the New Year?

    I Am That Crazy… I am going to do it again. I am offering to be a first reader for some of you. I am still just finishing up the reading for the short story challenge that ended at the end of November and the writers are still working on novels until January 15th, but that means I will have time to read again starting January 1st. What a great way to be motivated starting the new year. The first two times I did this, the challenges turned out to be fun for me. And the writers who participated said it challenged them to get writing done they might not…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    The Importance of Rest

    Resting is a Critical Part to Any Challenge… Those who have been following this so far, you know I have a mini-challenge of 20 short stories by the end of the month, a major challenge of publishing my age of 67 books in my 67th year, and a major challenge of running in 67 miles of races in my 67th year. I started the writing on the 10th and the exercise on the 11th. When I sat this up, being a long-time athlete, I knew that rest was going to be critical in all three challenges because all three were long-term. So today was my first scheduled rest day. So…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Only a Couple of Flickers

    At Least So Far… Winds are howling, but not bad for a coast storm. We are getting hit with about 70 mph gusts here. We are used to this. A much, much smaller storm hit the first day of the Master Business Class as people were trying to get here. People who never been in a coast storm found that one to be a worry. That had gusts around 40 and less rain than this one. We have about five or six at this level a year. When they start warning of gusts over a hundred is when we pay attention. (grin) And just to give a summary before I…

  • Challenge

    Just in Case

    I am writing this at 12:15 a.m.  I haven’t gotten to my writing computer yet to write a short story tonight. I will shortly. But why this post now is because we are having a little storm, winds over 70 mph here, and some trees still have leaves. Normally this level of storm we wouldn’t even notice, but the first one of the year means we may lose power. So I am putting this here in case I don’t make it back online tonight. (grin) Streak of days blogged got to be maintained you know. With luck I’ll see you in about six hours with a longer, more regular post…