The New Year is Coming… How to set goals and challenges and streaks and habits and so much more for the new year is in the 5th Pop-Up now available on Teachable. It is called “Remaining Focused” and has all sorts of things that can help you hit your writing goals in 2019. Plus it will be there for you for the entire year on your dashboard to review if you remember. — Also, a spot still open in the Mentor Program I am doing for a few writers for the entire year of 2019. Information a few posts back if you are interested. — Another thing on this late…

New Year Is Coming… And many writers, me included, are starting to set up challenges to help us reach goals with our writing. But the question is how to make the goals large enough to be challenging and yet not set up for failure. So let me tell you how I do it, since I have started and backed off a challenge twice now that I will be starting for the third time on January 1st. I do not consider the two first false starts as failure. Not in the slightest, actually. They were learning. So that is point one… Never think about failure. Just think positive about the challenge…

A Question About a Comment I Made… Most of you know that I flat out think that KU with its exclusive clause is the stupidest thing a writer can do in a career. (Outside of going to a traditional book publisher.) Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, for a short time you can make some money. Good for you, but it is still stupid for an overall indie career. You are not gaining readers. So I made this comment about how I wrote a couple of books for a straight-to-discount publisher and got a few questions about wanting me to explain that more. To put it simply, same as going to…

Yes, I Know That is a Dream for Many… But it is a horrid (and I mean horrid beyond words) path for writers now in 2018. But Dean, how can you say that? You first published with traditional publishing, right? Yes, I sold my first novel in 1987 and did my last work for them in 2008. I did 106 books (that I can remember) through traditional big-five book publishing. I am pretty convinced that even by my  math, most of that was last century. Let me repeat that. Last century. You know, dial phones hooked to a wall with cords, no internet, no email. That century. Yet traditional book…

Well, Kris Did… Our new Pop-Up Series was intended  to do a few a month tops. When a fun idea for one struck us. But Kris handed me three nifty ideas in the Pop-Up Series and I liked them as much as she did, so all three are coming in December. The third one in the first batch we did about writing short romance is now up, and the second one has a week left before it vanishes. (The first one is gone, but you can still get it in the bundles.) These are from 10 to 20 videos per Pop-Up on a certain topic we find fun and interesting,…

There is a Line To Walk Between the Two… I got a great question the other day about what I have been trying to do with my exercise and losing weight. And I realized the question also applied to my getting back solidly to writing. The question was: “Why are you pushing so hard to get back to exercise and running?” As those who follow here regularly know, since I got to Vegas in August, I have been working to add distance to my walking and running while at the same time losing weight. Two weeks ago, in a 5K run, I was down 20 pounds and had gained lung…

I Always Use Romance Team Structure… At least for the last 30 or 40 plus novels or so. I love the structure. But I seldom commit actual romance. The character focus is on other things, like solving mysteries in my mystery novels, or time-travel in my sf series or fighting aliens in my Seeders Universe. The one key element of a romance is that the focus must be on the relationship the entire way. The other plot stuff is just why they can’t be together instantly. So today it dawned on me that the new Thunder Mountain novella (Warm Springs Meadow) that I just finished is a complete romance. The focus…