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That’s Annoying
Just One of Those Things… As last night, another annoyance caused by epic disorganization. And I do mean epic. Fixable, but annoying. This today comes from my inability to get organized in a meaningful and long-term fashion with my writing and publishing. And this concerns Smith’s Monthly. Today, I really dug into the layout of Smith’s Monthly Issue #45. Now understand, Issue #44 came out in the summer of 2017. I have a ton of ads and promotions about a lot of my books in each issue. You know… filler. Since the magazine is all mine, might as well promote some of the other stories and series and such I…
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My Novel…
Never Sure What That Means… I do know that if a writer is constantly referring to their novel in those terms, the chances are they have made that book so important, it will take a very, very long time to finish, if ever. You never hear a professional writer talking like that, in those terms. They might say my current project, or my current book, or something along that way. But “my novel,” never hear it. And when I do hear some beginning writer say that, my first response is to ask, “Which one?” But alas, that would be rude because EVERYONE around them should know about THEIR NOVEL, don’t…
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New Year Starting…
Writing This Safely From Home…. …On New Year’s Eve, after midnight. 2020 has left the building. 2021 shows ugliness to start and promise over time. So thought I would talk about the writing challenge I am going to set for myself and some thoughts on how you could ramp up a writing challenge in the New Year. Here is how I would suggest you come at doing a writing challenge in 2021. Decide where you want to be at the end of 2021 with your writing. Some people use word count, I use project or story counts, but I do track words just for fun as well. On good years…
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Workshop Order and Breakdown…
Workshop Curriculum 1/1/2021 I went through these back about four months ago, so with the sale going on now, I thought I would do it again so everything is clear. Today’s post is just the workshops and I’m going to divide all of them down into areas of study. And the numbers are my suggestions on the order to take these workshops because many of them build on others. (Two types of workshops are included. Regular and Classic.) All workshops and courses can be found on Teachable. Just hit “see all courses.” To get them at half price, just use the code Resolution Pop-Ups and others will be listed later.…
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Year End Half Price Workshop Sale
Covid in Getting Worse… I honestly never would have predicted this last spring. Not in a million years. But at least now we have some hope on the horizon with the vaccines going out. But they won’t do much good especially over the coming months. Back when WMG Publishing did what we all thought here would be the last workshop sale in May, we had an expectation that as things opened up, we would all be able to slowly go back to a changed, but new normal life. And that sort of happened for some. Sort of. But by July it was clear that most of us were still locked…
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Making a Living With Short Fiction 2021
Back By Popular Demand… Actually, I am bringing this forward from 2014 and then May 2016 and then again July 2018. It is mostly unchanged. I will put in BOLD ALL-CAP ITALICS when I have changed something. A note: I used to say it was possible to make a living writing novels in traditional publishing. I made a great living in traditional with novels for 15 years. That is no longer the case for novels for all but a tiny few in traditional publishing in 2021, but novels indie published you can make good money. ———— Can You Make a Living Writing Only Short Fiction? Every year or so I…
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A Covid Day…
Kris and I Had An Anniversary Today… We were married 28 years ago on December 20th on the top of a hill in the middle of a tree farm we owned surrounded by small trees and great friends. We had already been a couple for almost seven years at that point. I remember it as a fun day since we went back to our house in the mountains outside of Eugene with all the friends and had a great dinner. At that point in time Pulphouse Publishing Inc. had become a shadow of itself, I was still editing the first Pulphouse Magazine and Kris was the editor of The Magazine…
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Friday Night Short…
Only Going to Get a Few Hours Sleep… Today I turned in the April issue of Pulphouse Magazine, introductions and all done. And I just finished a new short story as well, going to wait until tomorrow to print it off because in the morning (actually, only a few hours after I go to bed) I need to be up for a 5K charity run. Even with Covid restrictions, they are making these safe, very safe actually. But starting at 7 am, halfway across Vegas, means I have to get up at 5:30 am. Last night I went to bed close to 4 am. Tonight I’m trying for 3 am…
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Putting Up New Workshops…
January and February Workshops…. They will be up on Teachable over this next week. But hold off until the 26th to sign up for any of them because on the 26th we will be announcing a workshop sale. Everything half price again in an attempt to keep all of you home, safe, and busy learning. Also, yes, we will be starting the new Collections Classes and those will be available for the sale as well. So stay tuned. I am working on getting them active, but tonight I worked on Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. So great to have that coming back strong in 2021. In fact, we are moving from quarterly…
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An Idea For Balance for the New Year…
Combining Challenges… This is sort of a simple idea, but it has some catches to it. A lot of writers I know are setting writing goals for the new year. And publishing goals as well. I have my publishing goal half set, my writing not so much. And I have been focusing on exercise and on losing a few more pounds. (How cliche is that for a New Year’s goal?) So need goals there as well. So here is how I have been looking at each segment. Time. Exercise… I want to get back to 10,000 steps a day streak. For me that’s five miles. One to two miles are…