Or At Least Some of the Introduction… I might cycle back and add stuff to the introduction for the book. But for now, a day ahead of the challenge starting, I’m going to write some of this introduction. It is below. So many of you will have heard some of this on the ramp-up to this challenge. But I have to put it all in the introduction to the book, so hang on. Also, still two spots left in the follow along to the challenge, where I send you a letter every night and you get to read whatever I manage to write way ahead of it coming out, in…

First Some Thoughts on Time Management… Over the next few days I will be  doing two blogs that will, in essence be the introduction chapters to the book Living at Pulp Speed Five. But before I got to that (which will have some basic time management stuff in them and more in the blogs as the challenge goes along) I wanted to talk here about time management and give you something that might help some of you. Many of you will be following the Pulp Speed Five Challenge here (or closer in the daily letters) wondering how I will be able to be consistent and carve out the time from…

This Is A Good Thing… Six Days and Counting… If I was not getting nervous about the challenge of writing ten novels in one hundred days, the challenge wouldn’t be challenging me. So yes, I am nervous and excited at the same time. Where my focus has gone now, six days out from the start, is making sure my schedule here in Vegas has enough time built into it. I have only really been here for three weeks. So everything, including this office, is still new. That will make this interesting. I can’t just drop down into old habits and routines of 23 years on the coast. That’s worrisome all…

Both Have Been On My Wall For Decades… And they were on my office walls before that. So when we moved this last spring and early summer, I took the two sayings down and brought them with me for my new office. So what kind of sayings would I carry with me for so many decades? Almost since I started writing. The first, framed in a cheap mat and dirty and faded says simply… “If we could dare to write as ill as those whose voices haunt us still…” That is part of an Edward Gosse poem written way back and the poem is in the public domain. But think…

Finally Got a Dean-Level Insane Question… On the novel and short story challenge starting in September. You know the one, write thirty short stories in sixty days or write three novels in three months. The challenge that is almost full. Someone asked me today if they could do both at the same time. I LOVE THAT! My level of nuts challenge. And, of course, I said sure. And I offered the person a discount if they wanted to try it. Second challenge at half price (still get two workshops).  Both challenges for $900 and get four workshops. Why did I love that question? That is exactly the question I would…

But I Made Learning The Most Important Thing… I got a comment from a person in a letter after my post about going and learning from long-time professionals. It was a passing comment this person and not made in any way bad. But it sent me laughing. The comment was basically “Good thing you had money.” The reference was to my early days in writing and me having money in those days was so far from the truth as to be on another planet. I had no money. None. Let me give you a few stories. I went to my first convention in 1982 and shared a ride with three…