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Day One: Novel Challenge
Day One: Novel Challenge Really a strange start to this new novel challenge. I ended up getting to the WMG offices around 2:30 p.m., then headed out for errands, first going to our south store, then to a bank, then back to WMG offices, then to a second bank and the post office before heading to walk with two other writers. Got done with the walk around 5 p.m., headed to the grocery store for some lunch and to pick up what I needed for dinner, then back to WMG Publishing to work on workshop stuff. Home by 7 p.m., so 3.5 hours of work, 1 hour of exercise. Cooked…
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Goodbye Miss Thang
Miss Thang The very sick elderly cat we have been trying to get back to health for the last two months didn’t make it. More on all that below. ——- The Day Started the day off with a visit to the vet. Then back to WMG store for the writer’s meeting and lunch in the back area. It feels sort of strange, actually, to have a writer’s meeting in a store I own. In my first bookstore, both the science fiction club and the writer’s workshop met in my store every week. One on Tuesday, one on Thursday. That was in 1982-1984. Things go around and come around again in…
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Bookstore and Writing
Bookstore and Writing Worked in the afternoon in our new bookstore and wrote a bunch as well. ——- The Day Saturday so no real errands. Ended up in the new store working in the bookstore part of the new store for a few hours. Fantastic fun. Yeah, I know, paper books don’t sell anymore, but you need to tell that to all the people in the store today. (grin) Then I worked on workshop stuff, including the new Teams workshop. I’m having a blast doing that workshop and actually putting some things together myself. We have three people signed up for the teams workshop in July. Not even full at five…
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Day 1,000
Day 1,000 Now ain’t that a kick? 1,000 days of writing this blog without missing a day. 95 more days before it becomes three years of counting. Now that’s a streak. I’ve talked about the power of streaks, but going to do so again in the topic below. ——- The Day Got to the office around 2 p.m. and then went off and did errands, then walked with two other writers, getting back to the store around five. I worked until about 7 p.m. in the new store, then home to cook dinner. Then assignments, getting that done around 11 p.m. and taking a nap before going to watch some…
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Author Earnings Report
AUTHOR EARNINGS REPORT Today a new Author Earnings report came out form Hugh Howey and Data Guy. Normally these reports are amazing, especially watching the trends from quarter to quarter over the last year plus. But this time they went even farther. They got 82% of all books sold in paper, audio, and ebook on Amazon. And they talked a lot about the dark matter, the huge area of books that sell very, very few copies yet make up a lot of the volume on Amazon. This report is a stunner. Take your time and read it. I’ll give a few of my opinions below in the topic of the…
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First Day
FIRST DAY As expected, knowing I was going to get started today on the run up to ground effect writing, I gave the writing more attention, meaning I actually thought about it during the day. And between now and the end of August, I will go back to detailing out the day as I have done at times in the past. Skip it if it bores you. ————— The Day Made it through a bunch of errands starting at 1 p.m. and then to the regular Wednesday meeting by 2:30 p.m. That lasted until 5:30, but good stuff happening. Then I worked upstairs for about two hours, including two trips to…
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More Holiday Stuff
More Holiday Stuff Here in the States this is a major holiday weekend, runs through Monday. The Day I managed to get to WMG offices where we hold the writer’s lunch back behind the new store. It’s a cool feeling going in through a store to get to a secret writers hideout. Very few of us there. And then I spent the rest of the day and into late at night working on workshop stuff. ————— Online Workshops Still lots of room in all of them. Class #51… June 6th … The Business of Writing Class #52… June 6th … Character Voice/Setting Class #53… June 6th … Author Voice Class #54… June 6th ……
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Up Too Early
Up Too Early Went to bed at 5:30 a.m. and was back up at 8:30 a.m. Now that is just silly, but we got the new store open. Somebody asked me why I was up so early and I said “It’s not often you open a store.” Pictures soon. ————- The Day At the new store at 9 a.m. and worked there until I went off for a lunch meeting at 2 p.m. Then back to the store until Kris and I walked to dinner to meet another professional writer. Then home for a nap that felt like it almost killed me after only three hours of…
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Some Fantastic Writing Books!
Writing Bundle Folks, there is a new writing bundle that just started with ten writing books. Two are mine. Another by Kris, another by Lawrence Block, another by Gerald Weinberg, another by JoAnna Penn, and so on. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one. I’ve read all but two of these books and trust me, they are worth a lot more than what you would pay in this bundle. Those of you who want to learn, this is the cheapest education you can get from people who know what they are talking about. The Write Stuff 2016 Bundle Here is Kris’s blog about the bundle: The Write Stuff…
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Thirty Fantastic Years
THIRTY FANTASTIC YEARS Thirty years ago today I pulled into a driveway at an address in Albuquerque, New Mexico that Algis Budrys had sent me to. As I walked in the door, I met Kristine Kathryn Rusch and we have been together ever since. We had a wonderful day today just having fun and talking about thirty years and about years to come. I can’t even begin to imagine where I would have ended up if not for AJ sending me to that address. Certainly not here doing this. More than likely I would no longer be writing and would have just ended up working a golf course counter and…