• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Up Early for an Outing Tomorrow

    With the Romance Workshop… Kris is taking the entire romance workshop on a field trip tomorrow. The mystery workshop in May went to the Mob Museum and this group gets to go to the Springs Preserve, and I’m going along because I am a member there and love the place. So got to be up early for me, so nothing tonight except to say there are seven more videos posted in the Licensing Transition and sign-ups for that are still open if interested. And sign-ups for the two Great Challenges are also still open. Lost two more writers this week, so far. And I am caught up, basically, on my…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  running

    Slightly late posting on this one…

    Wanted to See If Pictures Appeared… From the run yesterday on the run web site, but they are not up yet, so only picture I got is one Kris took as I came across the finish line. Yes, Kris was that far ahead of me that she could finish, get out her camera, and get set to take pictures of me finishing. Actually my time wasn’t that bad. I had been walking/running regularly for the first two plus miles, staying ahead of Kris and then she would pass me while I was walking. Then the course went across a couple parking lots (very hot) and along a very shadeless sidewalk…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    As Promised…

    Pictures… Crawled out of bed at 6:30 a.m. and Kris and I were headed out the door before 7:30 am on a rainy and slightly cold morning for Las Vegas. All to attend a “5k fun run.” Actually it was for a great cause and made money to support rare childhood diseases and turned out to be a lot of fun, although very, very wet. (A squishing sound coming from a 68 year-old-man is never promising.) For the first time since I fell in November, I finished ahead of Kris and with a time around 38 minutes, but still run/walk. Got to work that down to around 30 minutes which…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    There Will Be New Pictures

    A Run At 8 am… Off for another 5k fun run in about seven hours, so this will be shorter than I had planned and I will get to the writing blog later. Need some sleep. But that means tomorrow Kris will have new pictures of our run on Facebook. Those are always fun. But before staggering off to get some sleep, I did want to say that the regular February Workshops are starting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Good list. Nine workshops. And soon I will have the workshops for April-July up. That will include some new workshops. And the next Futures Workshop called Structures will start in March. First…

  • Challenge,  running

    Fun New Year’s Eve

    Hope Everyone Kicked 2018 To The Curb With Fun… Kris and I sure did. We started off the day working, then a quick lunch, then more work. Then by 3 p.m. we were standing in a very windy, very cold park getting ready to run a “fun” 5k run to end the year. Wind died as we got started, so it turned out to be fun after all. Then home for a nice dinner, then a little more work before heading out to Fremont Street at 8:30 to join the crowds there in downtown Las Vegas. We saw the ball drop in New York there, then went into one of…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    A Great Christmas

    Short Post Tonight With a Picture… The host is working on this site with a new security update, so no worries if you see it is not secure. Working on that tonight and tomorrow (26th). But in the meantime, here is a picture of Kris and I on our way out to Christmas dinner. And even with a fire-alarm in the middle that forced the evacuation of the entire Wyn Casino, it was a wonderful dinner. A lot of fun. Happy Holidays, everyone.  

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Critical Voice Kills Take Two

    I Wrote This As a Comment Response Yesterday… So thought it would be good to clean up my comment, expand a little and put here so more people see it. It is on the topic of critical voice shutting off your enjoyment of other author’s work.  It is a matter of taste. Read the last post before reading this. When a book kicks you from the story, it is your taste, not the author’s fault. Always the case. What that author did is simply not to your taste, even if a craft thing. Why does that happen with craft? Because we writers have one way of writing something. When you…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Been Reading and Watching Movies

    We Writers Consume Story Everywhere… I’ve been doing that over the last few weeks in a number of places. First off, I have been reading challenge short stories and novels. Almost all done and will be sending out comments soon. Some really wonderful novels and stories, I must admit, from those who took the challenge starting in September. I am enjoying the reading a great deal. (And I might do it again for January. Haven’t decided yet.) And I have, when time allows, been watching Hallmark Christmas movies. Not for the plots, of course, but for the structure and the characters and the relaxing aspect of them. In other words,…

  • Challenge,  running

    Another Fun Run

    Last One Before the Big Weekend… Every week Kris and I have been going out and doing these early-morning fun-runs for different causes. This morning was something to do with the Marines. A platoon of clearly recruits (very young, meaning college age) or something were running at cadence and I fell in behind them and stayed with them for over a mile. Not bad for an 67-year-old guy. I ran the last part with a 71-year-old Navy guy who served on submarines during the Vietnam War. That was interesting and he left me in the dust near the finish. I have dropped about 22 pounds since the first one of…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    Poker Tournament Update

    The Practice Went Well… A decent small tournament that started with four tables (about forty people). It took me a couple of rounds to get settled in and some routines back in place. Felt like I was learning how to walk again. Very weird feeling. But after about an hour, I had a lot of chips and was getting the routines back. And doing a few new ones that are better for the long run. Enough people had been knocked out that we broke to three tables after two hours and then two tables left after three hours. At that point it becomes the middle part of a tournament and…