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Writing In Public…
Prologue Decided to do it. Write a novel in public again, detailing it out in blog posts every night. Totally insane, but great fun, which is why I am doing this. The last few days were interesting. The more I looked at the next ten to twelve days, and looked at deadlines, and publishing and other writing projects I will be doing, the more I realized how much I had to do. So the sane thing would be to just push off trying to do a novel quickly and in public. I’ve failed a number of times trying this because of scheduling issues the first year I was here in…
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Got Both Shots!!
Exhausted… But not sure if that is a reaction to the second shot, or relief that I have them both, or because I had to stand in a line that was almost one mile long (not kidding) in the sun on concrete for 3.5 hours. Not kidding. And there was a line that long for each of the two brands of vaccines. Thousands and thousands of people, all getting second shots at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Luckily I got there over an hour early and managed to get in the correct line, so I got my shot only two hours late from my appointment. So happy and tired. In…
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Fridays…
Not Sure Why Fridays Bother Me… I imagine it is because of back in 1987 I was finishing up a 14 year run of tending bar. Fridays, Saturdays, holidays, I always worked until late. So on Fridays I was alway out with those partying in one way or another. And then from 1987 until the late 1990s, I spent a massive number of weekends at science fiction, fantasy, and a few mystery conventions. In 1992 Kris and I went to 26 of them, one every other week. It was part of the business back then. We were both writers and Kris was the editor of the Magazine of Fanasy &…
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Story #1 of Challenge
I Promise I Won’t Do This Every Day… But for the first story, I figured it was worth mentioning. And more than likely I’ll talk about the challenge once a week or so as it is going on. And post small thumbnails of covers. So for story #1 I wrote a story I needed to write for the Year of the Cat #11. It is called “Cat Running Wild” and it is a Pahket Jones story, who is a spin-off of my Poker Boy and Ghost of a Chance series. I have done 7 Pahket Jones stories so far. She is a superhero in the world of cats. Story was…
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New Year Starting…
Writing This Safely From Home…. …On New Year’s Eve, after midnight. 2020 has left the building. 2021 shows ugliness to start and promise over time. So thought I would talk about the writing challenge I am going to set for myself and some thoughts on how you could ramp up a writing challenge in the New Year. Here is how I would suggest you come at doing a writing challenge in 2021. Decide where you want to be at the end of 2021 with your writing. Some people use word count, I use project or story counts, but I do track words just for fun as well. On good years…
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An Idea For Balance for the New Year…
Combining Challenges… This is sort of a simple idea, but it has some catches to it. A lot of writers I know are setting writing goals for the new year. And publishing goals as well. I have my publishing goal half set, my writing not so much. And I have been focusing on exercise and on losing a few more pounds. (How cliche is that for a New Year’s goal?) So need goals there as well. So here is how I have been looking at each segment. Time. Exercise… I want to get back to 10,000 steps a day streak. For me that’s five miles. One to two miles are…
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A Challenge For Everyone for 2021…
My Challenge of 70 While I Am 70 Pushes Me… So I got a comment about structuring a short story publishing challenge for 2021 for others, especially writers just starting out. And I think it’s a great idea for a bunch of reasons for most writers. So I thought I would go into the reasons and the idea here. Challenge: Publish 52 Short Stories Stand Alone In 2021 Note, I did not say write, I said PUBLISH. Stories would have to be stand-alone, most selling for $2.99 electronic and $4.99 paper. (Under 3,000 words sell it for $1.99… never 99 cents.) A lot of writers I know have collections published…
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Well, I Did It… 26.2 Miles…
In My 70th Year on the Planet… I completed the Revel Mt. Charleston Limited Edition Marathon. Picture of my medal below. And sometime this week the race will post pictures from the run and I will post some here. As I said, I completed it, but not well. For years I had been working toward a marathon in November when I would turn 70. But all my great planning went out the window like so much other stuff last April with Covid. I did not dare go to a gym to run at my advanced age and the summer here in Vegas was the hottest ever recorded in the history…
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Card Sharp Silver… Day 18
One Month Since Day Seventeen… Wow, just as all of us had a crazy last month, mine was no different. Some people have been working harder than ever with this virus, others are laid off and killing time or trying to focus. I have been in the bunch working harder than I can remember. But now, thankfully, returning to my normal level of freelance work, so I started a new short story series in the last few days and today got back to writing on the Cave Creek novel. So as I did for the first seventeen days on this, I will detail out the general nature of my day…
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Licensing… Oh, My…
Taking A Day Or Two Away From the Novel… I will be back on Monday talking about my regular routine, but for today and tomorrow I don’t want to have to push the book into a small place and time as I have been doing. I want to give it more time. So going to get a ton of workshop and business stuff done first, then focus on the run to the end of the book. But in the mean time, licensing… It has now been suggested that we all wear face masks when going out. Now that “suggestion” from medical folks doesn’t mean we should all go out and…