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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…
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Some of My History
Some of My History Today, while working on a new project for this web site (see the topic of the night below), I came across a video of what it was like when I was skiing. Now, I was never as good as the guys they are showing here, but I skied with some of them regularly. And a number of others who were in the early days of the hotdogging, as we called it. I was into snow skiing and the fun of the early days of hotdogging from 1969 to the spring of 1972. Crazy fun. In person, I can tell you some wild stories. But watching this…
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Had Fun Working in Our New Bookstore
Fun Working in Our New Bookstore Yeah, that’s right, WMG Publishing will, in short order, be the owner of a brick and mortar bookstore. It’s a large area inside of the new Pop Culture Collectables store. Actually one third of the entire store is paperbacks, hardbacks, sf and mystery digests, and magazines. Another third of the store is a comic book store. Wait until you see the wall of comics. I’ll do pictures. And in the comic book room will be die cast cars as well. And larger cars. And the main room is toys, non-sports cards, cookie jars, sports collectables, jewelry, and collectable boxes and clocks. We also have in…
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Workshops and Store
Workshops and Store A focused day, since this is the end of the month and the May workshops are starting up on Monday, so lots of things to do. Also, we are aiming at having the new store open by the 25th, so I’m going to be spending some time there. ATTENTION! Anyone who is signed for a May online workshop should have gotten a letter from me. If you did not, write me. And there is still room in all the workshops. Remember they are limited to no more than five (except the two new ones), so these workshops now have become more focused on me trying to help each…
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Setting Up New Writing Schedule
Setting Up New Writing Schedule Still pretty tired from the sleep schedule getting screwed up, so spent the day doing workshop stuff and getting ready to really fire back up the writing. See Topic of the Night below. ——— The Day Once again nothing really much to talk about. Made it through some errands and then went for a walk with another professional writer to get some steps in. Then back to WMG offices to work on workshop stuff. Then I headed home around 8 p.m. to cook dinner, then back working on workshop stuff and my writing stuff for the rest of the night. ———- Workshops May Online workshops…
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Workshop Day
Workshop Day Still pretty tired from the schedule getting screwed up yesterday with jury duty, so spent the day doing workshop stuff. ——— The Day Nothing really much to talk about. Introduced our cleaning person to the new cat, then headed to the WMG offices to work on workshop stuff. Had lunch with Kris, then more workshop stuff. Home for dinner around 7 p.m. and then I watched the Blazer game with the new cat on my lap. Then I took a nap, watched more television, worked on more workshop stuff, and am now going to call it a night. Got stuff accomplished, just nothing exciting. (grin) ———- Workshops May…
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Topic of the Night: How I Organize What I Do
Organization I got a request that I talk about how I keep my writing and business organized. I’ve been meaning to do this post for a time, but haven’t gotten to it, so figured why not tonight. So thanks for the suggestion. Pushed me over the edge. Also what pushed me over the edge was at a little after eight this morning I was going through security scanning to get into the courthouse for jury duty and I had to empty out my pockets. The guard looked at me very strangely when I dumped into the dish seven different thumb drives. I will explain why below. Publishing Business Organization First…
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Topic of the Night: Blaming the Reader
Topic of the Night: Blaming the Reader I got a letter from a very angry person about how his books weren’t selling at all and it was all because readers were too stupid and couldn’t find his books in all the crap on Amazon. Now normally, I just laugh and delete letters like that as hopeless. With this person, I should have done that, but instead I wrote him back a letter basically saying that the readers were never at fault, more than likely it was his covers or blurbs or writing. He might not like what I would say, but I offered to look at them if he sent a link.…
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Topic of the Night: Three Types of Thinking
Topic of the Night: Three Types of Thinking More than likely this will be a topic I’ll talk about regularly in numbers of ways. But for tonight, what got my focus on this was a comment made by the Passive Guy on a post he put up from Kris. (Scroll down to Kris’s post, his comment is under hers.) He said, “Under current contract practices, the author is the only person who has to think in the long term while everyone else in the publishing business is focused on the short term.” Wow, is that the truth. In so many ways. And so few writers focus on long term in business. In fact, my…
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Thinking Differently
Thinking Differently It’s been interesting how the long-term thinking topic has come up a lot this last week. So going to talk a little about that in the topic above. ——— The Day Made it up to WMG offices to work for a short time there before the 2 p.m. writer’s lunch. It was a good one, with a number of the writers from the romance workshop staying over. Then after a short run to the store for cat supplies, I worked in my office with the little new cat sleeping in Allyson’s office. Finally, around 6 p.m. I loaded all the cat stuff up in my van and then…