When It Comes to Production… I did a post on streaks, and have shown here that novels in all sorts of locations and challenges are possible. But in a conversation earlier today, I realized that all the challenges I have done with writing lately are time-limited. — Write 30 short stories in thirty days. Check, done twice. — Write a novel in five days while traveling. Check, wrote the book about doing it. — Write four novels in July. Check. All four novels now published. And here I am with over 1700 regular blog posts, a challenge, a streak that is not limited. I have studied a lot of the…

Spent the Day Up at WMG Offices Mostly I was doing some recording of coming workshops and such. And I got to play in collectables as well. Including looking for Chevy ads from 1961 newspapers. And going through a bunch of jewelry. And I bought a 1/4 scale Batman Dark Knight Mint in Package. So fun stuff. While I was doing all that on a rainy, cold day on the Oregon Coast, Kris was doing something far, far more important. She was marching in the March for our Lives in Vegas. Here is a picture of her getting ready to go out that she sent me.     ———— Femme…

Back in My Office At My Big Computer… But wow, was that one of those drives. Not a golf drive. I’ve been known over the years to hit a few of those fairly long, but this drive was by car. Actually van. Started off great with a wonderful breakfast and meeting with my closest friend who I have known and been best friends with since 1964. Then I drove through first sunshine, then rain, then snow over a nasty hill. Then more sunshine for an hour or so, then it started to rain and I drove for three hours in downpours until it turned to snow over the coast range,…

Doing this from my new iPad …with attached keyboard. Yeah, I know a lot of you are just going “So…” But after over 1,700 of these nightly blogs in a row, this is the first one I have done on anything but my huge iMac. (Now that all by itself is a record.) Since I am going to be in Las Vegas and in Lincoln City, both, I figured I better learn how to have a little flexibility if I want to really keep going on these nightly blogs. You know, come into 2018 like the rest of the tech-based country. (Grin) I teach a great deal about breaking old…

Just to Keep the Blog Streak Alive The streak is somewhere around 1,700 straight days without missing doing a blog, even a short one like this one. And I hope to be back writing soon once again. Got a cat errand to run first, though. Tonight Kris and I went to Black Panther, as good a movie as everyone has been saying. Like I said, keeping the blog short tonight. Not even anything about workshops tonight. (grin) And I found it interesting that not one person argued with me on my weekly hint video about giving audio a second thought at times. No one agreed, no one yelled at me.…

But There Are Details To Learn… Watching The Voice and in a couple places, the coaches told an artist to do some little trick or another. Watch having your head up too much, plant your feet to stay grounded, things like that to help in the technique of the song. It dawned on me that earlier in the evening I had been doing the same thing in some writer’s assignments. Things like watching information flow in descriptions, when to use character descriptions of clothes, when not to use dialog, and so on. All just techniques that are small and obvious once you understand them, yet as Kris said, each of…

I Got a Question… The question was basically how did I handle things like moves and sickness and other life rolls when I had book contracts. Good question, since for a few days right now I am deciding to not write as I get things switched around. I am going to put much of my answer here expanded some. I want to be clear that with traditional contracts and deadlines, I never missed a deadline in over a 100 novels. Not a one. And I thought writers who did miss contract deadlines to be problem writers. And as a ghost writer, I often wrote books for publishers because some famous…

Takes Planning To Get Back To Writing… When life turns and decides you are just not going to write for a short time, I learned a long time ago to not fight it. All that does is make the writing miserable and also you will lose in the end. So here I am with a challenge to do 67 published titles this year and to do that I will need to get back writing solidly by the end of the month. So Kris and I tonight spent some time working on planning how I will get back. I think I have a plan that will work, but it will depend…

Not Writing at the Moment… If you were coming to see progress, none to report, but that might change shortly and I’ll get back at it. And get back to reporting and talking about different aspects of writing and publishing. But for just a quick moment, I need to point out that sometimes life just doesn’t allow writing to happen. And I can write in 15 minute bits of time without a problem, but not even that much time for me at the moment. Sometimes the stuff that stops you from writing is bad stuff, or bad health stuff. Never fun. And if that happens, try your best to not…

Allyson Did An Ad… I saw a nifty ad that Allyson did for storybundle.com for The Femme Fatale bundle. And just had to post it here. Award-winning mystery writer O’Neil De Noux curated this bundle and has some amazing novels and writers in this one. Libby Fisher Hellman, Lawrence Block, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, to name just three major writers. And trust me, The Perfect Man by Kris is unlike any book you have ever read. And no way to ever go wrong with Grandmaster Lawrence Block. Now add in major mystery writers like Thomas Pluck and Julie Smith and this is a home run of a bundle. Wait! There…