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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…
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Story #29…
Two More Stories to Complete January… Considering I jumped from zero to full speed overnight, I will take it. I will do an inventory of the stories and word counts from January in a few days. On the publishing side, Kris has read 12 of them and I will be putting the first collection of ten together as soon as I work out an issue with doing the covers. The idea is for me to do a collection every two weeks once I start them. I will also be putting some of the stories in issues of Smith’s Monthly. Thinking the restart of that now March. I will also be…
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Story #28… Poker Boy
I Will Do a Full List After the 1st… But still going… Story #28… Two title halves were “Who You Calling…” and “Sweet Cheeks…” No idea what “Who You Calling Sweet Cheeks?” was going to be about until I started typing and up popped Poker Boy. Started it in the afternoon this time, got about 700 words done and the rest about 1 this morning, finishing fast and easy. Love stories that do that. I just kept typing until I found the end. I will do a word count as well, and I got to do an introduction and covers to the first collection. Kris has now read eleven of…
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Story #25…
Having Fun With a New Character… A detective character in my Poker Boy world who helps ghosts who are trapped move on. This is the 4th or 5th story from this character’s POV so far. I do that in these challenges, get stuck on a new character and write a bunch of stories, like every third story, for a few weeks before moving on. The titles all start with the phrase “The Woman Who…” Tonight it was “The Woman Who Hates Heights.” Also did some story reading. Going to be really picking up speed on that over the next month, finishing up the stories for the Space Opera Study Along…
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Story #19 in 19 Days…
Yes, It Is Getting Easier… Belief system in the creative voice is back solidly. Like I tell others, after life rolls, the writing is still there and sometimes a little stronger. Working out that way for me. Today I started off by spell-checking three of the earlier stories so I am about 7 stories ahead of Kris reading now. She liked the first two. Yay. But if she doesn’t, I will still publish them as is. But nice she is liking them. We walked to lunch. Beautiful winter day. I then watched some football, had a nap, cooked dinner, then after recording a workshop I spent far, far too much…